Hippolyte-Jules Lefèbvre (4 February 1863,

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Pref ...

- November 1935,

Arcueil Arcueil () is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Name The name Arcueil was recorded for the first time in 1119 as ''Arcoloï'', and later in the 12th c ...

) was a French sculptor and medallist who received numerous official marks of recognition in his day but is now largely forgotten. His most prominent works are the monumental

equestrian sculpture An equestrian statue is a statue of a rider mounted on a horse, from the Latin ''eques'', meaning 'knight', deriving from ''equus'', meaning 'horse'. A statue of a riderless horse is strictly an equine statue. A full-sized equestrian statue is a d ...

s of

Joan of Arc Joan of Arc (french: link=yes, Jeanne d'Arc, translit= �an daʁk} ; 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronati ...

and

Louis IX of France Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly known as Saint Louis or Louis the Saint, was King of France from 1226 to 1270, and the most illustrious of the Direct Capetians. He was crowned in Reims at the age of 12, following the ...

, set up on the Basilique du Sacré Cœur, Paris.

Biography

From a working-class background, he made his first studies at the École des Beaux-Arts, Lille, where he won numerous prizes and was sent with a municipal scholarship to study at the

École des beaux-arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth century ...

, Paris In 1882 he moved to Paris, where he was a pupil of

Pierre-Jules Cavelier Pierre-Jules Cavelier (30 August 1814, Paris – 28 January 1894, Paris) was a French academic sculptor. Biography The son of a silversmith and furniture maker, Cavelier was born in Paris. He was a student of the sculptors David d'Angers an ...

Louis-Ernest Barrias Louis-Ernest Barrias (13 April 1841 – 4 February 1905) was a French sculptor of the Beaux-Arts school. In 1865 Barrias won the Prix de Rome for study at the French Academy in Rome. Barrias was involved in the decoration of the Paris Opéra ...

and

Jules Coutan Jules-Félix Coutan (22 September 1848 – 23 February 1939) was a French sculptor and educator. Life As a student at the École des Beaux-Arts, Coutan was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1872; after his return to Paris he executed the f ...

. He began exhibiting regularly at the Salon des Artistes Français from 1887, and in 1892, after receiving seconds in 1888 and 1891, won the

Grand Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

in sculpture; on his return to Paris he pursued a successful official career. He was made a chevalier of the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...

, and an officer in 1925. Aside from Sacré-Coeur, where he also provided sculpture for the high altar, his public sculpture is to be seen also at the

Grand Palais The Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées ( en, Great Palace of the Elysian Fields), commonly known as the Grand Palais (English: Great Palace), is a historic site, exhibition hall and museum complex located at the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arro ...

, Paris, where he received a gold medal at the

Exposition Universelle (1900) The Exposition Universelle of 1900, better known in English as the 1900 Paris Exposition, was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from 14 April to 12 November 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate developmen ...

. His kneeling funeral figure of Léon-Adolphe Cardinal Amette, 1923, is in the Chapel of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul,

Notre-Dame de Paris Notre-Dame de Paris (; meaning "Our Lady of Paris"), referred to simply as Notre-Dame, is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité (an island in the Seine River), in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. The cathedral, dedicated to the ...

. He was called upon to provide sculpture for a number of monuments to the fallen of World War I. His ''Jeunes Aveugles'' (1902) won a medal of honor and was purchased for the collections at the

Palais du Luxembourg The Luxembourg Palace (french: Palais du Luxembourg, ) is at 15 Rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It was originally built (1615–1645) to the designs of the French architect Salomon de Brosse to be the royal residence of the ...

, Paris. His work may also be found on the

Opéra de Lille The Opéra de Lille is a neo-classical opera house, built from 1907 to 1913 and officially inaugurated in 1923. Closed for renovation in 1998 it reopened in 2003 for Lille 2004. The Opéra de Lille is a member of the European Network for Opera, M ...

, 1914; the ''Allegory of the Republic'' in the ''cour d'honneur'' of the French embassy in Vienna (built 1904); a marble ''

Niobe In Greek mythology, Niobe (; grc-gre, Νιόβη ) was a daughter of Tantalus and of either Dione, the most frequently cited, or of Eurythemista or Euryanassa, the wife of Amphion and the sister of Pelops and Broteas. Her father was the ru ...

'' at the Tour de Roland,

Arles Arles (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Arle ; Classical la, Arelate) is a coastal city and commune in the South of France, a subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the former province of ...

; and at the Hôtel de Ville, Roubaix. Lefebvre was often called upon to make commemorative medals, such as one celebrating the centenary of Argentine independence, 1910; one commemorating Jules Gosset, for the Société des Sciences, Lille; one that the architect Louis M. Cordonnier, member of the ''Institut de France'', distributed to friends and colleagues, 26 January 1912; Fondation Firmin Rainbeaux, 1930. His workshop drawings and jottings, unlike his finished sculpture, approached abstraction.Hippolyte Lefèbvre
/ref> A street commemorates him in Lille and a quai in Mondeville.

Notes

External links

Biography
(German) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lefebvre, Hippolyte 1863 births 1935 deaths Prix de Rome for sculpture French medallists Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Members of the Académie des beaux-arts 20th-century French sculptors 19th-century French sculptors French male sculptors 19th-century French male artists