Francis van Bossuit
Francis van Bossuit, was a Flemish sculptor, working mostly in terracotta, wood, and ivory.Biography
According to the RKD, he traveled to Rome and joined the Bentvueghels with the nickname "Waarnemer". He worked with Barent Graat and Matthys Pool and consorted with Florentine academy students. He travelled back north around 1680 with the painter Bonaventura van Overbeke. He is known for ivory and wood sculptures, and his motifes became popular and are found in the works of other contemporary artists such as Jan van Mieris and Willem van Mieris, Ignatius van Logteren, Barend Graat, and Nicolaas Verkolje.
Roeland van Eynden and Adriaan van der Willigen, in their Geschiedenis der Vaderlandsche Schilderkunst, write that he was given the title "Waarnemer" by his Schildersbent friends in Rome due to his precise observations of the classic statues there. Equipped with the skills to create poetic sculptures, he returned north with Bonaventura van Overbeek, and became an internationally recognized artist due to the unusual tenderness of his ivory sculptures of the classics. His international fame was probably mostly due to the educational book published in 1727 by Matthys Pool called Cabinet de l'Art de Sculpture, with engravings after drawings of his works that illustrated stories from Ovid and other classics.
