Famous 18th Century Sculptors

Antonio Canova was an Italian Neoclassical sculptor widely regarded as the greatest of the Neoclassical artists. He was famous for his marble sculptures. His work was inspired by the Baroque and the classical revival. His most notable works include Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss and Perseus Triumphant. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he refused to take in pupils. 

Italian architect, artist, and archaeologist Giovanni Battista Piranesi is best known for his 16-print series name The Prisons. His remarkable etchings of the famous landmarks of Rome exhibited his unique etching technique, which involved contrasts of light and shade. He made about 2,000 plates throughout his life.

Jean-Antoine Houdon was a French sculptor best remembered for his statues and portrait busts of philosophers, political figures, and inventors. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, his sculptures were used as a reference for imprinting portraits of prominent personalities on various U.S. postage stamps.

German-Austrian Franz Xaver Messerschmidt was a court sculptor in Vienna but was later forced to move to Pressburg, now Bratislava, where he worked on a series of over 60 heads, made of either tin alloy or alabaster. The heads have peculiar expressions, but their meaning hasn’t yet been unearthed.

Aleijadinho was a Brazilian architect and sculptor best remembered for his works in and on various churches of Brazil. Aleijadinho's works are generally considered some of the finest paradigms of Portuguese colonial architecture. Also among his best-known works are the famous Twelve Prophets, a set of soapstone sculptures at the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus of Matosinhos in Congonhas.

Antonio Corradini was an Italian Rococo sculptor from Venice best known for his sculpture Veiled Truth (also called Modesty or Chastity). After spending much of his career as a migrant artist traveling to different parts of Europe, he was made court sculptor for Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna. He resumed traveling after the emperor’s death. 

John Flaxman was a British sculptor. He was a key figure in British and European Neoclassicism. Largely self-educated, he began his career as a modeler for potter Josiah Wedgwood's pottery. He then began sculpting grave monuments and earned a reputation as a prolific maker of funerary monuments. He was married to Anne Denman, who assisted him throughout his career. 

Through his stunningly realistic masterpiece, Il Disinganno, or Release from Deception, which he completed in 7 years, Italian sculptor Francesco Queirolo symbolically showed a man’s release from sins. The fisherman’s net in the sculpture is so intricately carved that people don’t believe it’s made out of marble.

François-Thomas Germain was a French silversmith who worked for the European royalty, earning the title royal silversmith. His association with financiers in 1765 was considered a breach of guild regulations, resulting in his resignation and bankruptcy. Today, many of his works are showcased in museums across Europe. François-Thomas Germain was portrayed as the main antagonist in Assassin's Creed Unity (2014).

Giuseppe Sanmartino is best remembered for his stunning marble work Veiled Christ, a depiction of a deceased Christ under a shroud, that was left incomplete by Antonio Corradini. The statue earned him further commissions from Bourbons and various Neapolitan churches. He also worked on silver sculptures in his final days.

Eleanor Coade was a British businesswoman known for her astute entrepreneurial, business, and marketing skills. She manufactured Neoclassical statues, architectural decorations, and garden ornaments. She created stoneware for many famous buildings, including St George's Chapel, The Royal Pavilion, Brighton, and Carlton House. She was one of the few women to run a highly successful business in the Georgian era. 

Étienne Maurice Falconet is perhaps best remembered for his creation the Bronze Horseman, which depicted Czar Peter I of Russia on a horse. He developed the French Baroque style into Rococo art. Many of his works were made for the Sèvres Porcelain Factory. He also penned Reflections on Sculpture.

Nicolai Abildgaard was a Danish neoclassical sculptor, history painter, and architect. He also served as a professor of anatomy, mythology, and painting at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Abildgaard also served as a royal history painter and was commissioned by the Danish government to produce large monumental pieces to decorate the Knights' Room at Christiansborg Palace. 

John Michael Rysbrack was a Flemish sculptor best remembered for his work in England where he was considered one of the leading sculptors of architectural decorations, portraits, and monuments in early and mid-18th century. John Michael Rysbrack is also remembered for running an influential workshop whose output left a significant impact on future English sculptors.

Paul Storr was an English goldsmith and silversmith. He worked predominantly in the Neoclassical style in vogue in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. One of the most prominent silversmiths of his era, he created several magnificent sculptural pieces for royalty. He collaborated with John Mortimer to found their joint venture, Storr and Mortimer, in 1822. 

Joseph Nollekens was a British sculptor best remembered for his portrait busts. One of the most fashionable portrait sculptors of his generation, Nollekens was also widely regarded as the best English sculptor of the late-18th century. Joseph Nollekens' famous statue Faith in Wetheral Parish Church is considered his finest work.  

Spanish-born sculptor and architect Manuel Tolsá is credited with introducing Neoclassical art to Mexico, then known as New Spain. His most iconic works include the construction of the College of Mines and the completion of the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral. Apart from Neoclassical symmetry, he also used Baroque elements.

Peter Scheemakers was a Flemish sculptor who lived and worked for most part of his life in London. Scheemakers' church and public sculptures in a classicist style had a significant impact on the progression of modern sculpture in England. Peter Scheemakers is best remembered for executing a memorial to William Shakespeare which is part of Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Andrea Brustolon was an Italian sculptor who used wood to carve his sculptures in the Baroque style. He also used his skills to carve devotional sculptures. Such was his popularity that both contemporary and future sculptors  imitated his style; Valentino Panciera Besarel imitated Andrea Brustolon's style to make upholstered armchairs from the 1860s.

Giacomo Serpotta was an Italian sculptor who mainly worked in stucco. Historians believe that he was self-trained and had no direct exposure to the mainstream of Italian Baroque. He often collaborated with others, and his first major solo work is believed to be an equestrian statue cast of Charles II of Spain and Sicily. 

Not much is known about artist Franz Anton Bustelli’s early life, except that he worked at a porcelain factory. One of the greatest figures of the Rococo style of art, he created porcelain figures of gods, street vendors, and even Oriental characters. His signature style included the use of rich colors.

Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier was a French painter, goldsmith, architect, sculptor, and furniture designer. Renowned for his spectacular decorative style, Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier worked for the nobility of France, Portugal, and Poland. His works are currently preserved at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in Manhattan, New York City, USA.

Francisco Salzillo was an 18th-century Spanish sculptor. He worked exclusively on religious themes and almost always used polychromed wood as his medium. Hundreds of the pieces he made are distributed throughout the Region of Murcia. Unfortunately, many of his works were destroyed during the Spanish Civil War. His great nativity scene is considered one of his masterpieces. 

Renowned Hungarian sculptor István Ferenczy was the son of a locksmith but ended up training in copperplate engraving at the Vienna Academy. A master of marble statues, he wished to establish a sculpting school in his country. Eurydike and the Statue of Kölcsey remain two of his best-known works.