DU QUESNOY, FRANÇOIS, called the FIAMMINGO. - Sculptor, b. in Bruxelles on 12 Jan. 1594, d. in Livorno on 12 July 1643. He received his first artistic training from his father Girolamo il Vecchio in his native city; in 1618 he went to Rome, where he formed a friendship with Nicola Poussin and began to study antiquity.
From his study of certain paintings by Tiziano (l'Offerta a Venere, the Baccanale, and Bacco e Arianna), he derived his particular skill in the representation of putti; indeed, he executed a large number of putti intended to be cast in bronze or silver, and modelled figures of angels for the baldachin of S. Pietro; sculptures greatly admired by his contemporaries. In 1626 he began work on the S. Susanna for the church of S. Maria di Loreto, and in 1628 on the S. Andrea for the Vatican basilica. In 1629 he executed the epitaph of Adriano Vryburg for S. Maria dell'Anima; in 1633 he began the other one for Ferdinando van den Eynde in the same place; later he carved the high relief with the Concerto di angeli for the church of the SS. Apostoli in Napoli. In Rome he must also have been in close contact with Ercole Ferrata, in whose studio there were numerous models of his works. Invited to go to France by Luigi XIII as royal sculptor, he hesitated for a long time; having fallen ill and been advised to return to his homeland, he left Rome in 1643, but died during the journey at Livorno, where he was buried in the Franciscan church of the Vergine.
His finest work is the statue of S. Susanna, which won him from Urbano VIII the commission for the S. Andrea in S. Pietro. Bellori, a precursor of Neoclassical ideals and a great admirer of antiquity, praised this work highly, calling it an example bequeathed to modern sculptors. The colossal statue of S. Andrea, less successful than the preceding one, likewise displays, in the moderation of its expression—especially when compared with others adorning the piers of S. Pietro—the author's love of classical sculpture. Also noteworthy is the Concerto d'angeli for the Filomarino chapel in Napoli.