Eugène Andre Oudine

Eugène Andre Oudine (1810-1887), French sculptor and engraver of medals, was born in Paris in 1810, and devoted himself from the beginning to the medallist's branch of sculpture, although he also excelled in monumental sculpture and portrait busts.

Having carried off the grand prize for medal engraving in 1831, he had a sensational success with his "Wounded Gladiator", which he exhibited in the same year. He subsequently occupied official posts as designer, first to the Inland Revenue Office, and then to the Mint. Among his most famous medals are that struck in commemoration of the annexation of Savoy by France, and that on the occasion of the peace of Villafranca. Other remarkable pieces are "The Apotheosis of Napoleon I", "The Amnesty", "Le Due d'Orleans", "Ber-tholet", "The Universal Exposition", "The Second of December, 1851", "The Establishment of the Republic", "The Battle of Inkermann", and "Napoleon's Tomb at the Invalides". For the Hotel de Ville in Paris he executed fourteen bas-reliefs, which were destroyed in 1871.

Of his monumental works, many are to be seen in public places in and near Paris. In the Tuileries gardens is his group of "Daphnis and Hebe"; in the Luxembourg gardens the "Queen Bertha"; at the Louvre the "Buffon"; and in the courtyard of the same palace the "Bathsheba". A monument to General Espagne is at the Invalides, and a King Louis VIII at Versailles. Oudine, who may be considered the father of the modern medal, died in Paris in 1887.

References

*1911