Frans de Vriendt

Jan Frans De Vriendt (4 or 24 He lived and worked in Borgerhout. He was educated (from 1847 to 1859) at the academies of Mechelen, where he studied under Joseph Tuerlinckx,

Frans De Vriendt made monumental statues in stone, bronze or wood, as well as portrait reliefs and bas-reliefs. Most of his clientele was from Belgian, but he also had foreign clients, notably from the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands. He delivered Stations of the Cross to more than thirty places of worship, including the churches of Mechelen, Hoboken, Merksplas, Schilde, Stabroek and Tollembeek.

In the 1860s, De Vriendt was a teacher of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. The Dutch sculptor (1838–1914) studied in Antwerp from about 1863 to 1870 and was trained by him.

De Vriendt died in Borgerhout at the age of 89. The interment took place at the Borgerhout cemetery Silsburg, but his grave no longer exists. The local population honored him by naming Frans De Vriendtstraat after him.

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