Background
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux was born on May 14, 1827 in Valenciennes. He was the son of a mason.
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux was born on May 14, 1827 in Valenciennes. He was the son of a mason.
For some time, Carpeaux was a student of the prominent French sculptor François Rude. Winning the 1854 Prix de Rome enabled him to live in Rome (1856–62), where he was influenced by the works of such Italian Renaissance sculptors as Michelangelo, Donatello, and Verrocchio.
Carpeaux became the leading sculptor of the Second Empire, recording its typical figures in a series of distinguished portraits. In such works as the Pavilion de Flore pediment, the Dance (Paris Opera) and the Four Parts of the World (Luxembourg Gardens), he captured the spirit of the period. He established his reputation with Neapolitan Fisherboy (1857) and Ugolino and His Sons (1861), a dramatic bronze for the Tuileries Gardens, Paris, and won favour at the court of Napoleon III, receiving many commissions for portrait busts. Freedom of movement, open forms, and bold manipulation of surfaces for contrasts of light and shade characterize Carpeaux's original, nonacademic style. He died near Counbevoie, October 11, 1875.