Jean Baptiste Carpeaux

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux was above all a sculptor, the most lively of Second Empire France, but he also painted. His paintings are quick and loose, with a sketchy, dark manner, and many record the life around him, including scenes from the siege of Paris in 1870 to 1871.

He was born in Valenciennes in 1827, studied under François Rude and at the École des Beaux-Arts, and won the Prix de Rome in 1854. In Rome he studied Michelangelo and Donatello and made his group Ugolino and His Sons. Back in Paris he became a favourite of the imperial court. His sculpture The Dance for the façade of the Paris Opéra caused a scandal for its energy and nudity. His work is in the Musée d’Orsay, the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum. He died in 1875 near Courbevoie.

In the siege paintings, look at the rapid brushwork: they read like notes made on the spot.