Cyprian Godebski (30 October 1835, Méry-sur-Cher, near Bourges – 25 November 1909, Paris) – sculptor, organiser of artistic life and art critic. Grandson of Cyprian Godebski of the Godziemba coat of arms, a colonel in the Polish army who fell at Raszyn in 1809, and a well-known poet, journalist and translator of French literature. The sculptor’s father was Franciszek Ksawery, a prominent figure in the émigré community in Paris after 1831, a writer, translator, literary historian, and collaborator with Adam Mickiewicz on the publication of *Trybuna Ludów*, co-founder and lecturer at the Polish national school in Paris (the so-called ‘Batiniol’ school). It was through his father’s connections that Cyprian received his education at that school and made his first artistic contacts. He studied drawing under Fernand Dupuis, and from 1853 he was likely already working in the Paris studio of the renowned sculptor François Jouffroy and began his career as a sculptor, creating busts of Tadeusz Czacki and Stanisław Konarski for the façade of the Batiniol School building. When Franciszek Ksawery moved to Lviv in 1858, where he became curator of the Ossolineum, Cyprian settled there with him, securing his first commissions thanks to his father’s connections. In addition to several tombstones and monuments in Galicia, in Lviv itself he produced busts and medallions of local dignitaries, writers and artists, as well as the monumental sculptural decoration of the Military Invalids’ Building, constructed between 1855–1863. The works attributed to him at the Lychakiv Cemetery were cast in sandstone by Godebski’s workshop, and his personal contribution to these works is not entirely clear. In 1861, he settled in Vienna, where he received a prestigious commission to create two marble statues for the Feldhernhalle, the Imperial Arsenal, depicting the 18th-century marshals Franz M. Lacy and Gideon E. Laudon. He also produced an unspecified number of portraits and tombstones in Vienna. In the spring of 1863, he was imprisoned (during a brief stay in Lviv) for sympathising with the January Uprising. It was probably this event that prompted him to return to Paris after his release. At the 1864 Salon, he soon exhibited two sculptures related to the uprising. By the end of that year, Godebski had moved to Belgium, where, in January 1865, he married Eugénie Sophie Léopoldine Servais, the daughter of the distinguished cellist Adrien-François Servais. In the town of Halle (French: Hal) near Brussels, he undertook the decoration of the family’s villa (terracotta reliefs on the façades with musical themes), created a monument to his father-in-law (1869, unveiled in 1871 on the Grote Markt in Halle), and, thanks to family connections, continued to benefit from his contacts within the European music world for many years to come. Among others, he painted portraits of Franz Liszt, Gioacchino Rossini and Henri Vieuxtemps. The artist spent the following years travelling and working in Belgium, Paris, St Petersburg, where he produced numerous portraits of figures from court circles, musicians and actors, and was appointed an Honorary Associate Member of the local Imperial Academy of Arts (1870). His wife Sophie died there in 1872; Godebski sculpted her gravestone in St Petersburg (no longer extant). In the same year, he designed a monument to Frédéric Chopin in Warsaw (never realised), and also worked on a monument to Stanisław Moniuszko (completed in 1875, but not unveiled until 1887 in the porch of All Saints’ Church; no longer extant). Godebski’s stay in Warsaw in 1875 was particularly significant; at that time, already with his second wife, Matylda Natanson (they married in 1874 in Carrara), he briefly ran a literaryand played a significant role in bringing together a community of young, modern-minded painters and critics (the circle known as the ‘studio’ at the Hotel Europejski). At the same time, Godebski began writing a series of reports from Paris for *Gazeta Polska*, which were in essence an exposition of his views on art, a collection of opinions on contemporary events in Paris, the state of sculpture, and so on. These articles, entitled ‘Letters on Art’, were published for almost a year, from 16 August 1875 to 10 July 1876. The lack of wider recognition within Warsaw’s artistic circles, as well as the lack of a significant public response to his solo exhibition organised in Warsaw, discouraged Godebski; furthermore, the publicity generated by the unveiling in 1875 the tombstone monument to Théophile Gautier, featuring his own sculpture, at Montmartre Cemetery in 1875, ultimately prompted him to settle in Paris in 1876. From then on, with the exception of brief visits to Kraków, Warsaw and Lviv (most frequently; his last stay there was in 1905), work in Carrara and stays in Brittany, he lived there until his death. In his lavishly decorated house in the Monceau district, he led a rich social life, hosting a salon frequented by artists and writers from across Europe. He exhibited regularly at the Paris Salons, organised ‘living picture’ performances, and secured further commissions in France (including a sculpture for the façade of the opera house in Monte Carlo in 1879, a medallion of Hector Berlioz for his gravestone in Montmartre Cemetery in 1884, and a monument to General Adolphe Le Flô in Lesneven, Brittany, in 1899). He was elected a member of the academies in Urbino and Volterra, and was awarded Belgian and French orders. He maintained regular contact with the Polish émigré community, creating various commemorative works, the most impressive of which is the Monument to France’s Gratitude in the courtyard of the Polish school (known as the ‘Batiniol’ school), featuring a bust of Dr Seweryn Gałęzowski (1879). He helped many Polish artists (such as Kazimierz Alchimowicz, Józef Chełmoński, Wacław Szymanowski and Jan Woydyga) at the start of their careers in Paris. This now-forgotten aspect of Godebski’s work was not limited to budding painters and sculptors. Henryk Sienkiewicz is said to have owed him a debt of gratitude for his efforts to secure a French edition of the novel *Quo vadis*, and Władysław Reymont also benefited from his assistance in Paris. From 1897, Godebski served as president of the Polish Artistic and Literary Circle (from 1902, the Society) in Paris, of which he was a co-founder. He sought to secure Polish art’s participation in the 1900 World’s Fair; after this plan fell through, he organised a comprehensive exhibition of 19th-century Polish painting at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris. It met with little interest or favourable reception from Poles, whereupon the sculptor withdrew from further involvement in émigré organisations.

Undoubtedly, portrait work was the artist’s main source of income. Some portraits were produced in several versions (plaster, terracotta, marble and bronze casts). Godebski was highly adept at meeting the demand, striking a balance between a factual depiction of the subject and a certain degree of idealisation or stylisation. He painted portraits of Belgium’s greatest musical figures (including for the Royal Conservatoire in Brussels), prominent French figures (the writer and critic Armand Silvestre in 1883, National Museum in Warsaw; the Breton poetess, Léocadie Salaun-Penquer, 1889, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brest) and Poles (including, in 1883, General Ludwik Mierosławski, on his gravestone at Montparnasse Cemetery; Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, at the Polish Library in Paris). One of Godebski’s finest busts is the marble portrait of his first wife, Sophie (c. 1864–1865; National Museum in Warsaw).

Monuments make up a large part of his oeuvre. Despite Godebski’s victory in the competition for a monument to Adam Mickiewicz in Kraków (1888), the work was never realised. However, a monument to the Warsaw bard was erected, unveiled in 1899, whilst in Kraków a small statue of Nicolaus Copernicus (1899) and a bust of Aleksander Fredro (1900) were erected, in Lviv, a statue of Agenor Gołuchowski, the Viceroy of Galicia (1900, no longer extant) and a bust of Taras Shevchenko (1905). The monument to the Battle of Sevastopol in Crimea (a design probably dating from 1870), once mentioned in his catalogue of works, was never realised, nor was the design for a monument to the Hungarian politician, Ferenc Deák from 1876, and a monument to Christopher Columbus. He was also wrongly credited with the creation of the monuments to Franz Liszt in Weimar and Henri Vieuxtemps in Verviers, Belgium. The large-scale project for a monument to the Republic of Peru remains a mystery – Godebski was reportedly the winner of an international competition and worked on a model of a multi-figure composition until 1869, but the monument was never erected in Lima. In these works, the artist generally employed the conventional formula of a figure standing on a plinth (less frequently busts), in a few monuments with richly decorated plinths (allegorical figures, bas-reliefs), but he was exceptionally skilled at capturing the distinctive features of certain individuals being commemorated (e.g. Servais, Le Flô).

Godebski was also successful as the creator of allegorical compositions (including  Liberation, 1872; Genius and Brute Force, 1888;  *The Dream of Fame*, 1894) and salon sculptures on mythological themes (e.g. the group *Temptation* or *Persuasion* from 1881, reproduced in many versions). These often served as a showcase for Godebski’s technical virtuosity. The deliberate references to early Classicism or to the French Rococo style, which was in vogue in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, ensured these works’ popularity with the public. Equally conventional are the gravestones, which follow the traditional allegorical style of 19th-century cemeteries (the angel on the grave of the Tamberlick and Gałęzowski families at the Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, 1886) or drawing on the simple design of a stele with a portrait bust (by the draughtsman Constantin Guys on his grave at the Pantin cemetery near Paris, 1908). He rarely tackled genre subjects, but his naturalistic depiction of the head of a Russian Drunken Peasant proved a great success (the first version in St Petersburg from 1870, later reproduced in France). Religious works also constituted a marginal part of his output, but Godebski’s greatest work, and one of his finest sculptures, is the group *Madonna of the Shipwrecked*, unveiled in 1904 at Pointe du Raz in Brittany, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. The grand ceremony marking its unveiling was, in fact, the artist’s last public success.

Godebski also led a lavish lifestyle at his summer house near Paris, in Valvins on the Seine, where he entertained, amongst others, well-known French writers and artists. Following the death of his second wife in 1887, he married for a third time, almost immediately, to the aristocrat Mathilde de la Frenaye, and moved to the exclusive district of Auteuil. There, too, the Godebskis ran an artistic salon.

The sculptor also made a name for himself as an entrepreneur. In Carrara, he leased his own quarry, and undertook similar activities in the Pyrenees. In Avon, near Fontainebleau, he purchased a run-down small ceramics factory, where, together with Alchimowicz, he conducted experiments in painting on faience and porcelain. In the absence of more detailed information, it is difficult to assess these ventures, including their financial success. Undoubtedly, however, Godebski skilfully managed his international career, drawing on his connections in many countries and circles. He carried out some commissions without charging a fee or organised the transport of the works at his own expense, which endeared him to his clientele.

Research into this extraordinary figure is only just beginning. Cyprian Godebski remains, in the history of Polish culture, primarily the father of the more famous Misa Godebska and the creator of the Warsaw monument to Mickiewicz (whose figure, in the post-war reconstruction, only vaguely alludes to his work). His patronage and collecting, his organisational and entrepreneurial ventures, and his masterful image-building are still largely overlooked by our art history. A large part of his sculptural output also remains unknown, still untraced in private collections. An assessment of his vast and varied sculptural oeuvre, however, cannot be unequivocal, apart from the indisputable quality of his craftsmanship. Although he declared himself a proponent of many innovations, as a sculptor he remained essentially a traditionalist. His ‘Letters on Art’ have been praised in various studies by Polish art critics; however, this one-off endeavour in this field, undertaken by the sculptor, is regarded as marginal to the discipline.