Prosper D'epinay Biography
Prosper D'Epinay (1836 - 1914) was a French sculptor and caricaturist.
In 1857, he decided to pursue a career in art and settled permanently in Paris, where he studied sculpture at the workshop of Jean-Pierre Dantan and began drawing caricatures.
Thanks to a scholarship, he was able to study at the French Academy in Rome, where he dedicated himself to the study of classical sculpture under the guidance of Luigi Amici. He later moved to Rome, where he opened a studio on the Via Sistina which he ran until 1912. In 1864, he achieved his first success in London, where he presented a caricature of Napoleon III and Lord Palmerston walking arm in arm. The same year, he was commissioned by the Duke de Luynes to create a statue of "Innocence" for the Château de Dampierre.
After several years spent between London, Paris and Rome, he decided to settle permanently in London, where he made friends with the English aristocracy.
His most famous work is probably a polychrome statue of Joan of Arc that he exhibited at the 1902 Salon. Seven years later, one of his patrons offered the statue to Reims Cathedral on the occasion of his beatification. It was placed in the apse of the chapel where Joan is believed to have stayed during the coronation of Charles VII.
Many of his clients came from the nobility and the royal family, so much so that he was called "sculpteur de souveraines".
