The French sculptor Emile-Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929) was a pupil of Auguste Rodin and worked primarily in bronze and marble. He sought to restore monumentality to sculpture through an eclectic borrowing from both ancient Greek and medieval sculpture. Concerned with the public function of sculpture, Bourdelle reintroduced sculpture to its traditional outdoor and architectural settings.

Emile-Antoine Bourdelle was born in Montauban, France, the birthplace of Ingres, on October 30, 1861. His early interest in sculpture was inspired by his carpenter-cabinetmaker father. In fact, many of Bourdelle's earliest sculptural projects were in wood. A bust of the painter Ingres, completed when Bourdelle was just 15, won him a scholarship to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the nearby city of Toulouse. While in Toulouse he studied under the sculptor Maurette and executed numerous portrait busts before leaving for Paris in 1884.

The first years in Paris brought Bourdelle some success. He won an...