Francois Rude

1784 - 1855  French Sculptor
Francois Rude was a French sculptor. He was the stepfather of Paul Cabet, a sculptor. Born in Dijon, he worked at his father's trade as a stovemaker till the age of sixteen, but received training in drawing from Francois Devosges, where he learned that a strong, simple contour was an invaluable ingredient in the plastic arts. In 1809 he went to Paris from the Dijon school of art, and became a pupil of Pierre Cartellier, obtaining the Grand Prix de Rome in 1812. After the second restoration of the Bourbons he retired to Brussels, where, probably owing to the intervention of the exiled Jacques-Louis David he got some work under the architect Charles Vander Straeten, who employed him to execute nine bas-reliefs in the palace of Tervuren, now destroyed.

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