The French sculptor and painter Jean Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1875) stood apart from the neoclassic formulas of his time in the vehement expressiveness of his figures. The nude was a major motif of his large-scale allegorical works.

Jean Baptiste Carpeaux was born on May 11, 1827, in Valenciennes, the son of a mason. In 1842 he studied in Paris under the leading romantic sculptor, François Rude. The following year Carpeaux worked at the atelier of the sculptor Francisque Duret. Beginning in 1846 Carpeaux studied at the École des Beaux-Arts.

In 1854 Carpeaux won the Prix de Rome for his neoclassic statue Hector Imploring the Gods for His Son, Astyanax. At this time he also worked in a tempestuous romantic vein, as may be seen in Ugolino and His Starving Sons (1857-1861), which was executed and exhibited in Rome. The literary inspiration of this work was Dante's Inferno, where Carpeaux found the...