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

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

Images

<gallery mode="packed" heights="200">

File:Valenciennes - Cimetière des Prix de Rome - Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (2).jpg|Bust of Carpeaux Saint Roch Cemetery

File:FontaineQuatrePartiesDuMonde04.jpg|The Seasons turning the celestial Sphere for the Fountain of the Observatory, Jardin du Luxembourg

File:Carpeaux Negress 01.jpg|Why Born Enslaved! 1868, National Museum in Warsaw

File:Carpeaux Valenciennes 080810 26 Ville.jpg|Patinated plaster model for Valenciennes defending the arts of peace with the arts of war

File:Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux La Danse.jpg|La Danse (The Dance), 1868, for the Opera Garnier, heavily criticized as being indecent

File:Ugolino and His Sons MET DP247545.jpg|Ugolino and His Sons, 1857–1860. Photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

File:Valenciennes carpeaux jeune fille coquille bis.jpg|Young Girl With a Shell, Valenciennes

File:Triomphe de Flore Pavillon de Flore Louvre.jpg|Le Triomphe de Flore (The Triumph of Flora), 1866. South façade of the Pavillon de Flore, Louvre Palace, Paris

</gallery>

References

  • A page from insecula.com listing more views of Carpeaux's works (it may be necessary to close an advertising window to view this page)
  • A page analysing Carpeaux's Ugolino, with numerous illustrations
  • Europe in the age of enlightenment and revolution, a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Carpeaux (see index)
  • Wagner, Anne Middleton.  Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux: Sculptor of the Second Empire.  (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).
  • The Passions of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux 2014 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris; the catalog was written by James David Draper and Edouard Papet
  • Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast 2022 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art organized around Carpeaux’s Why Born Enslaved!