François Duquesnoy or Frans Duquesnoy (12 January 1597 – 18 July 1643) was a Flemish Baroque sculptor who was active in Rome for most of his career, where he was known as Il Fiammingo ("the Fleming"). His idealized representations represented a quieter and more restrained version of Italian baroque sculpture, and are often contrasted with the more dramatic and emotional character of Bernini's works, while his style shows a great affinity to Algardi's sculptures.
Early years
Duquesnoy was born in Brussels. Having come from Flanders, Duquesnoy was called Il Fiammingo by the Italians and François Flamand by the French. His father, Jerôme Duquesnoy the Elder, sculptor of the Manneken Pis fountain in Brussels (1619), was the court sculptor to Archduchess Isabella and Archduke Albert, governor of the Low Countries. The sculptor Jerôme Duquesnoy, the younger was his brother. Some of Francois' early work in Brussels attracted the notice of the Archduke, who gave him the wherewithal to study in Rome, where he would spend his whole career.
According to early biographers, when Duquesnoy arrived in Rome in 1618, he studied antique sculpture in detail, climbing over the equestrian Marcus Aurelius to determine how it was cast, or making a pilgrimage to the shrine of Diana at Lake Nemi. In 1624, Nicolas Poussin, who shared his classicly styled, emotionally detached manner of depiction, arrived in Rome, and the two foreign artists lodged together. Both moved in the circle of patronage of Cassiano dal Pozzo. They developed a canon of ideal expressive figures, counter to the theatrical baroque of Bernini. Contemporary critics, like Giovanni Bellori, in Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors and Architects from 1672, hailed Duquesnoy's art as restoring contemporary sculpture to quality of antique Roman sculpture. Bellori said that with his Santa Susanna, Duquesnoy "had left to modern sculptors the example for statues of clothed figures, making him more than the equal of the best ancient sculptors...".
Among Duquesnoy's early works are bas-relief putti for Villa Doria Pamphili. In spite of the contrast perceived by contemporaries in their stylistic approaches, Duquesnoy collaborated with Bernini in the design, among others, of the angels offering garlands of the baldacchino for Saint Peter's (in process 1624–1633). The four angels are entirely Duquesnoy's work, and this work earned him future commissions.
The statue of Santa Susanna
Duquesnoy's classicly styled Saint Susanna (1629) depicts the saint as both modest and revealing under marble draperies – "so much so that the pure volume of the members is visible" (Bellori). This is one of four sculptures depicting virgin martyrs by various sculptors for the church of Santa Maria di Loreto in front of the Roman Forum of Trajan (1630–33).
Critics have remarked on the refined surfaces and the softness and sweetness with which Duquesnoy invested this statue. There is a transcendence in her empty gaze. The sculpture was little known until the 18th century, when a marble copy by Guillaume Coustou was sent to Paris (1739) and Duquesnoy's Susanna entered the canon of most-admired modern sculptures.
The statue of Saint Andrew in the Transept of St Peter's
The more extroverted marble representation of Saint Andrew (1629–33) was begun a few months after his completion of the Santa Bibiana. It is one of the four larger-than-life statues which frame the baldacchino in the transept of St. Peter's Basilica; each statues is associated with the basilica's primary holy relics (the other three statues in St. Peter are Bernini's Saint Longinus, Mochi's Saint Veronica, and Bolgi's St Helena). It is useful to contrast the tone of Andrew with that of Longinus: in Andrew the draperies fall vertically or droop, while Longinus''' clothes inflate in improbably starched ebullience. Andrew leans over the saltire cross of his martyrdom, while Longinus theatrically flings arms outward expostulating divine influence. Both statues accentuate the diagonals, but Duquesnoy's is more restrained than either Bernini's or Mochi's contribution.