Cyprian Godebski

Cyprian Godebski (30 October 1835 – 25 November 1909) was a Polish sculptor known in the Russian Empire and Paris. From 1870 he was a professor at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. He was the grandson of Polish poet and novelist Cyprian Godebski, creator of the "Legions poetry" genre, who had served in Napoleon's Polish Legions. Cyprian Godebski is remembered for having won the contest for the Adam Mickiewicz Monument in Kraków. But he lost that commission to a newcomer, Teodor Rygier, whose more popular design was ultimately adopted by the city in 1889. Godebski, however, was commissioned for his equally revered Mickiewicz monument in Warsaw, erected 10 years later on Krakowskie Przedmieście, for which he was awarded 50,000 rubles by the Committee to Erect the Adam Mickiewicz Monument (Społeczny Komitet Budowy Pomnika). The Warsaw statue was destroyed by German Nazis in 1942 during World War II. It was recreated in 1955 using the head and a fragment of the torso recovered in Hamburg. Biography Godebski received his art education at the Paris studio of sculptor François Jouffroy. He lived and worked in Lwów from 1858 and in 1861 moved to Vienna, where he worked on commissions from the Imperial court of Austro-Hungary. In 1863 Godebski moved to Paris again, and lived alternately in France and in Belgium. In 1870 he accepted the nomination for the professorship at the Imperial Russian Academy of Arts and moved to St. Petersburg for several years. He lived in Warsaw in 1870 and 1875.