be considered the "painterly pendant" to Duquesnoy's, praised the Van den Eynde putti greatly. In a letter to Duquesnoy, in which he thanks the Fiammingo for the models after the putti of Van den Eynde's epitaph, he writes: I do not know hot to express to you my obligation for the models you have sent me, and for the plaster casts of the two putti for the epitaph of van den Eynde in the Chiesa dell'Anima. Still less can I praise their beauty properly. It is nature, rather than art, that has formed them; the marble is softened into living flesh Even Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who generally was a critic of the Baroque, commented: Our artists resemble the classical sculptors in the sense that they too do not know how to make beautiful children, and I believe that they prefer to choose a Cupid by Fiammingo [Duquesnoy] to imitate than on by Praxiteles himself. The well-known story about a Cupid that Michelangelo made and then placed alongside one by an old master, in order to teach our generation how excellent the art of the ancients was, proves nothing here, for Michelangelo's children will never move us as deeply as nature itself does. I do not believe that I am overstepping the mark when I say that Fiammingo acted like a new Prometheus, by modelling creaturres that were rarely seen Many notable artists visited Van den Eynde's tomb in Rome to reproduce his epitaph in drawing and painting. Among the drawings which survived to this day, there are those of Johan Sylvius, Jean-Robert Ango and Augustin Pajou. References Sources 1630s sculptures 1640s sculptures Marble sculptures in Italy Sculptures by François Duquesnoy