Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (; 11 May 1827 – 12 October 1875) was a French sculptor and painter during the Second Empire under Napoleon III.

Life Born in Valenciennes, Nord, son of a mason, his early studies were under François Rude. Carpeaux entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1844 and won the Prix de Rome in 1854, and moving to Rome to find inspiration, he there studied the works of Michelangelo, Donatello and Verrocchio. Staying in Rome from 1854 to 1861, he obtained a taste for movement and spontaneity, which he joined with the great principles of baroque art. Carpeaux sought real life subjects in the streets and broke with the classical tradition.

Carpeaux debuted at the Salon of 1853 exhibiting La Soumission d'Abd-el-Kader al'Empereur, a bas-relief in plaster that did not attract much attention. Carpeaux was an admirer of Napoléon III and followed him from city to city during Napoléon's official trip through the north of France. After initially not making any contact with the emperor, he finally succeeded in arranging a face-to-face encounter at Amiens where he managed to convince Napoléon to commission a marble statue that was to be carried out by a practitioner, Charles Romain Capellaro.

He employed his brother as the sales manager and made a calculated effort to produce work that would appeal to a larger audience. On 12 October 1875, he died at George Barbu Știrbei's château in Bécon-les-Bruyères, outside Courbevoie. with versions in other museums including the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. The Dance, commissioned for the Opera Garnier in 1869, featuring several nude figures in a wild and boisterous dance, criticized as an offense to common decency (Neapolitan Fisherboy) (Musée du Louvre, Paris) Young girl with a shell, Valenciennes Antoine Watteau monument, Valenciennes Flora and bas-reliefs for the southern facade of the Pavillon de Flore, Palais du Louvre, for architect Hector Lefuel, 1865 The multifigure allegorical group on the top of the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) of his home town, Valenciennes, 1860–1873 Fontaine de l'Observatoire, also known as the Carpeaux Fountain, south of the Jardin du Luxembourg. Partly complete at his death, Carpeaux finished the terrestrial globe with the cardinal points represented by the four figures of Asia (East), Europe (North), America (West) and Africa (South). L'Amour à la folie, part of a group La Danse for the facade of the Opera Garnier (1869)

Collections Carpeaux's works are in the following collections:

Art Institute of Chicago J. Paul Getty Museum Metropolitan Museum of Art Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University National Gallery of Art Smithsonian American Art Museum

In popular culture The Carpeaux: a cake made with butter cream and candied chestnuts between two oval macaroons is named in tribute to Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.

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