Joseph Charles Marin (1749 - 1834). Joseph Charles Marin was a French sculptor He was a student of Claude Michel and made several attempts to win the Grand Prix de Sculpture before the French Revolution, only winning it in 1801 with the bas-relief Caius Gracchus leaving his wife Licinia. Michel was a strong influence on Marin's early style, which was light, elegant and gracious. He later adopted more austere subjects and style closer to the canons of neo-classicism then in force. In 1813 he became a professor at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon on the death of his former teacher Joseph Chinard, the post's previous holder.