A leading Belgian sculptor and medallist, innovator in the art of the medal, artist of the synthesis between ornament and monument.

Godefroid Devreese was born in Kortrijk in 1861. After initial training at the Kortrijk Academy, he moved to Brussels and pursued his studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels from 1881 to 1886, under the direction of sculptors Eugène Simonis and Charles Van der Stappen. In 1884, he settled in Schaerbeek, a Brussels commune where he would reside until 1939.

A curious traveller, he journeyed through England, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Paris. His dual career as sculptor and medallist distinguished him in the Belgian artistic landscape of his time: considered one of the renovators of the art of the medal in Belgium, he created more than four hundred medals over the course of his life. His reputation in this field earned him numerous honorary distinctions.

Devreese maintained a close artistic relationship with the architect Victor Horta, with whom he collaborated on several monuments. It was Horta who drew up the plans for the studio that Devreese occupied on the Rue des Ailes in Schaerbeek, a testament to the profound affinity between the two creators at the heart of Brussels Art Nouveau.

His most celebrated sculptural work is the Vase des Bacchanales, whose history perfectly illustrates his creative method: conceived in 1893 as a terracotta model, taken up again in 1907 as a monumental bronze for the park of Mariemont at the instigation of patron Raoul Warocqué, then transposed into marble between 1912 and 1913, a material that Devreese considered the noblest for this composition. The bronze version was offered in 1911 to the commune of Schaerbeek by Warocqué, following the fire at the town hall; it remains visible on Avenue Louis Bertrand. The Rue Godefroid Devreese in Schaerbeek bears his name today. He died in Brussels in 1941.