Book excerpt: "Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1875) was an extraordinarily gifted sculptor, the greatest in 19th-century France before Rodin, and embodied the emotionally charged artistic climate of his era ... Carpeaux's wrenching representations of human forms, shown in beautiful color details and illustrations, echo his turbulent personal life, fraught with episodes of violence and fatal illness. The book covers the entire span of Carpeaux's career, and includes the masterpiece Ugolino and His Sons, newly discovered drawings, and a number of rarely seen or studied works. Previously unpublished letters between Carpeaux and his family and friends, a wealth of archival material, and the most detailed chronology of the artist's life ever published."--Yale University Press website.