Biography

Flemish sculptor and architect, son of Jérôme Duquesnoy the Elder. He was trained in Brussels by his father. In 1618 he went to Rome to complete his training with his brother François. He separated from the latter as a result of a dispute, and he seems to have traveled to Madrid, Lisbon and Florence. From 1641 to 1643 he worked again in his brother's studio in Rome. After his death, he returned to Brussels where he began a brilliant career. His brother's moderately Baroque works remained a model for him for the rest of his life. Together with Artus Quellinus I and Rombaut Pauwels (1625-1700), he helped spread this style in the Netherlands.

In 1644-1646 he sculpted four large statues of apostles for the nave of the collegiate church of Sainte-Gudule (the apostles Paul, Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew). In 1651 he was appointed architect and sculptor of the Court. That same year, he sculpted a statue of St. Ursula for the Church of Our Lady of Sablon in Brussels, and in 1653 The Education of the Virgin by St. Anne for the collegiate St. Gudule, the current cathedral of the city. As an architect, he built from 1651 to 1656 the chapel Notre-Dame of the latter.

From 1651, he worked mainly to build the mausoleum of Bishop Antonius Triest at St. Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent. This last work was not yet finished when it was accused of sodomy on two young boys of 8 and 11 years old. He was sentenced to death, and on September 28, 1654, tied to a post and strangled.