Raphaël - Charles Geerts (1807 – 1855)

The bust is a rendition of the famous painter Raphael by Charles Geerts, signed and dated 1845.

This copy of the famous bust was commissioned by the first king of the Belgians, Leopold I, in 1836 at the Ghent Salon. The voluptuousness of the hair, the folds and details of his clothes faithfully reproduced in the marble and the delicacy of the face, convey the exemplary quality.

His Madonnas have made him a master of the Italian Renaissance revered by the greatest painters, from Jacques-Louis David to Pablo Picasso, via Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Eugène Delacroix. The divine Raphael (1483-1520), with his soft and suave brush, is the author of famous frescoes for the Vatican. More than a painter, Raphael is a true myth in the history of art: a precocious talent, lover of the Fornarina, in love with antiquity, he knew how to combine the grandeur of Michelangelo with the suave model of Leonardo da Vinci. He sums up the spirit of the Renaissance.

Charles Geerts (Anvers, 1807 – 1855, Louvain)

The neo-gothic sculptor Charles Geerts (Karel Hendrik Geerts)(Antwerp, 1807 – 1855, Leuven) studied at the Antwerp Academy (1824 – 33) with the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Van Hool (1769 – 1837) and the Dutch sculptor Jan Antoon Van der Ven (1799 – 1866).

In 1834, he was appointed professor of sculpture at the Academy of Leuven where he taught until his death. That year he also debuted at the Antwerp Salon with a bust and a statue : L’Aurore.

He obtained a commission for nine busts of composers and playwrights for the rotunda of the Royal Theatre of Antwerp. He sculpted the bust of Raphael, which was acquired at the Ghent Salon by Leopold I (1836).

Official commissions:
• marble bust of the Madonna (today rue du Zaïre)
• Saint Maurice for the camp of Berverloo (1842)
• Scène du Déluge (1839), now in the University Library of Louvain.

For the Palais des Nations, he executed the monument to John the Conqueror, Duke of Brabant and Limburg; six statues for the facade of the City Hall of Leuven (1849-52), and for the facade of the City Hall of Bruges (1855 – and which was removed in 1959).