Giovanni Dupré
Giovanni Dupré (1 March 1817 – 10 January 1882) was an Italian sculptor, of distant French stock long settled in Tuscany, who developed a reputation second only to that of his contemporary Lorenzo Bartolini.
Also recorded as Giovanni Dupre · Giovanni Duprè
Giovanni Dupré

Illustrazione - Rivista italiana, 1874 · Public domain
- Name
- Giovanni Dupré
- Born
- 1 March 1817
- Birthplace
- Siena, Tuscany, Italy
- Died
- 10 January 1882
- Place of death
- Florence, Tuscany, Italy
- Field
- Sculptor
- Movement
- Neo-classical marble sculpture
- Nationality
- Kingdom of Italy
- Occupation
- sculptor · writer
- Fields
- art of sculpture
- Movements
- Neoclassicism · Classicism
- Languages
- Italian
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
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Documentary summary
Giovanni Dupré (1 March 1817 – 10 January 1882) was an Italian sculptor, of distant French stock long settled in Tuscany, who developed a reputation second only to that of his contemporary Lorenzo Bartolini.
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Note VALÉORINE
Giovanni Dupré (1817–1882) was an Italian sculptor and writer. Born in Siena, the sculptor died in Florence.
Giovanni Dupré was a member of Académie des beaux-arts and worked in Florence and Siena. The sculptor was active in art of sculpture. Giovanni Dupré was associated with Classicism and Neoclassicism.
Languages used include Italian. Works by the sculptor are held at Certosa di Bologna.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 27 September 2026
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Authority files
wikidata · Q916057 · wikipedia · Giovanni Dupré
In this article
Biography
Biography
Adolfo Cozza is recorded as having studied under Giovanni Dupré. The recorded working language is Italian. The field of work recorded is art of sculpture. Places of work recorded in the authority are Florence and Siena. Work by Giovanni Dupré is recorded in the collections of Certosa di Bologna.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Giovanni Dupré • Born — 1 March 1817 • Birthplace — Siena, Tuscany, Italy • Died — 10 January 1882 • Place of death — Florence, Tuscany, Italy • Field — Sculptor • Movement — Neo-classical marble sculpture
Biography
Biography
Born in Siena, Dupré began in his father's carving workshop and that of Paolo Sani, where he was occupied with producing fakes of Renaissance sculptures. • Illustration — Cain (Hermitage Museum) In an open contest run by the Accademia di Belle Arti, he won first prize with a Judgment of Paris and made his reputation with the life-size figure of the dead Abel (illustration, right), which was purchased for Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna, Duchess of Leuchtenberg (now at the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg) and was replicated in bronze, c. 1839, (now in the Galleria d'arte moderna, Palazzo Pitti, Florence). The raw naturalism of the figure, greeted with shock at the time, presaged the beginning of the end of Neoclassicism in Italian sculpture and gained Dupré the encouragement of Lorenzo Bartolini. He followed this with a more classical Cain (1840, also in marble at the Hermitage Museum and in bronze at the Pitti). He followed with figures of Giotto and Saint Antonino of Florence for façade niches on the Loggiato degli Uffizi, and a bust of Pius II for the Church of San Domenico (Siena) in Siena. On a trip to Naples he passed through Rome and saw Antonio Canova's funeral monument to Pope Pius VI, which influenced his style in a classical direction. A period of ill-health was followed by renewed vigour, which resulted in the brooding and melancholy Sappho of 1857–61, with its Michelangelesque flavour (now in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome); contemporary critics acclaimed it as his best work to date. In 1851 he was called upon to provide the model for the bronze base for the grand table inlaid in pietra dura with Apollo and the Muses, executed by the Grand Ducal Opificio delle pietre dure; Duprè's figures of the Seasons with putti was cast in bronze by Clemente Papi. The table stands in the Sala del Castagnoli, Palazzo Pitti. In 1859–64 he sculpted the funeral monument for contessa Berta Moltke Ferrari-Corbelli in the left transept of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence. He followed it with the Putti dell'Uva (the "Grape Children"); the Madonna Addolorata for Santa Croce, Florence (1860), and the bas-relief of the Triumph of the Cross, accompanied by figures representing all the ages of Christianity, in a lunette over its main entrance. • Illustration — Abel, by Giovanni Dupré; (Hermitage Museum) In 1863 Dupré created his finest work, the Pietà (1860–65), for the family tomb of the marchese Bichi-Ruspoli in the cemetery of Misericordia, Siena. This group was awarded the Grande medaille d'honneur at the International Exhibition in Paris. The San Zanobi for the façade of the Duomo di Siena, the Risen Christ for the Dupré memorial chapel, the colossal allegories of the Cavour monument in Turin (1872), the bronze bust of Savonarola set in his cell at the monastery of San Marco, Florence (1873), and a number of minor works complete the list of Dupré's productions. His last work, the St. Francis inside the Cathedral of S. Rufino in Assisi, was finished by his eldest daughter and pupil, Amalia. Time failed him to execute the crowning figure of the Madonna for Santa Maria del Fiore. He died in Florence. At the height of his reputation, he served on vetting juries for several international exhibitions. His memoirs, Pensieri sull'arte e ricordi autobiografici (Florence, 1879, 2nd ed. Milan 1935) were translated into English by Edith Marion Story Peruzzi (Edinburgh, 1886), daughter of the American expatriate sculptor William Wetmore Story. Dupré's daughter Amalia achieved some reputation as a sculptor. One of his students was Augusto Rivalta.
Identity
Identity
Giovanni Dupré is recorded as sculptor and writer.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
Explore 1817–1882
The full dated record · 3 entries
1817
Giovanni Dupré born at Siena.
1865
Giovanni Duprè, o, Dell'arte: dialoghi due (1865) is digitised and catalogued by Internet Archive.
1882
Giovanni Dupré died at Florence.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Siena.
Birth place
Florence.
Death place
Works and collections
Works and collections
Many works of Giovanni Dupré can be found gathered in two particular places in Tuscany. The recently closed Dupre Museum in Fiesole, a suburb of Florence was curated until recently by Dupre's relative Amalia Dupre. The other significant treasury of Dupré works, a gipsoteca featuring plaster molds for many of his most famous marble sculptures including the Abel and two sculptures for the Loggia of the Uffizi, is held in the museum pertaining to Siena's Contrada dell'Onda in via Fontanella 1, and displayed since 1961 beneath the Contrada's Chapel. Plaster molds held here include two works depicting Bacchus as a child: Bacco Festante and Bacco Dolente, a remarkably sensitive depiction of a female child with angel's wings praying called Angel of Prayer, Cain, Abel, various busts, and two group pieces each depicting one adult with two children. Two other funerary monuments depicting sleeping baby girls, of extraordinary sensitivity, comparable in delicacy with his Berta Ferrari monument in Basilica San Lorenzo in Florence, can be found in the Municipal Museum and the Museum of the Works of the Duomo in central Siena.
Documents and archives
Primary material
Documents and archives
Institutional database
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q916057: Giovanni Dupré
Scholarly · Wikimedia Foundation
reference work
- “Giovanni Dupré”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Giovanni Dupré Italian sculptor Britannica. www.britannica.com.
- 2.The street where he was born, now via Giovanni Dupré in his honour. is just steps away from Piazza del Campo.
- 3.Rosanna Pavoni, Reviving the Renaissance: The Use and Abuse of the Past in Nineteenth Century Italian Art and Decoration (Cambridge University Press) 1997:40. The fakes did not surface in the press until after his death: C. Boito, "Il cofano falsificato di Giovanni Duprè" Arte Italiana Decorativa e Industriale 9.3, March 1900:37f (noted by Pavoni).
- 4.T.C.I. Firenze e dintorni 1964:352.
- 5.T.C.I., Firenze e dintorni 1964:281.
- 6.Livia, Lupi. Sculptor Giovanni Dupré Died on 10 January 1882 in Florence. www.italianartsociety.org. 2023-01-10.
- 7.Touring Club Italiano, Firenze e dintorni 1964:266.
- 8.Berresford, Sandra, ‘’Italian Memorial Sculpture 1820–1940 : A Legacy of Love’’, Frances Lincoln Limited, London, 2004 p. 64
- 9.Dell a Siena (SI).
- 10.Il Museo.
- 11.~~ Contrada Capitana dell'Onda ~~.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
Institutional database
Wikidata, structured authority record Q916057: Giovanni DupréWikimedia Foundation
Verifiedreference work
Partially resolved
Further particulars
Held on the record
Further particulars
Open the remaining particulars
The authorities additionally record the headings Giovanni Dupre and Giovanni Duprè. His recorded language was Italian. One child is recorded: Amalia Dupré. Formation and teaching. Each of those relationships is stated by the authority record rather than inferred from style. Dupré worked in art of sculpture. His work is associated with Neoclassicism and Classicism. He belonged to Académie des beaux-arts. He worked at Florence and Siena.
Identity and origins
Career and activity
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Sculpture
6,174 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Giovanni De MartinoArtist
- Giovanni di BalduccioArtist
- Giovanni di CeccoArtist
- Giovanni di StefanoArtist
- Giovanni FerrariArtist
- Giovanni Francesco RusticiArtist
- Giovanni Francesco SusiniArtist
- Giovanni ManzoliniArtist
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