DUQUESNOY, François, called Il Fiammingo. - Sculptor, b. in Brussels on 12 January 1594, d. in Livorno on 12 July 1643. He received his first artistic education from his father Girolamo the Elder in his native city; in 1618 he went to Rome, where he formed a relationship with Nicolas Poussin and began to study the antique.
From the study of certain paintings by Titian (The Offering to Venus, the Bacchanal, and Bacchus and Ariadne), he derived his particular skill in the representation of putti; he in fact executed a great number of putti intended to be cast in bronze or silver, and he modeled figures of angels for the baldachin of St. Peter's; sculptures greatly admired by his contemporaries. In 1626 he began work on the St. Susanna for the church of S. Maria di Loreto, and in 1628 the St. Andrew for the Vatican basilica. In 1629 he executed the epitaph of Adrian Vryburg for S. Maria dell'Anima, in 1633 he began the other for Ferdinand van den Eynde in the same place; later he carved the high relief with the Concert of Angels for the church of the SS. Apostoli in Naples. In Rome he must also have been in close contact with Ercole Ferrata, in whose studio there existed numerous models of his works. Invited to go to France by Louis XIII as royal sculptor, he hesitated for a long time; having fallen ill and being advised to return to his homeland, he set out in 1643 from Rome, but died during the journey at Livorno, where he was buried in the Franciscan church of the Virgin.
His best work is the statue of St. Susanna, which earned him from Urban VIII the commission for the St. Andrew in St. Peter's. Bellori, a precursor of neoclassical ideals and a great admirer of the antique, praises this work very highly, calling it an example left to modern sculptors. The colossal statue of St. Andrew, less successful than the former, also shows, in the measure of its expression, especially when compared with others that adorn the piers of St. Peter's, the author's love of classical sculpture. Also noteworthy is the Concert of Angels for the Filomarino chapel in Naples.
Bibliography3 works
Vincenzo Golzio