The poet Prudens Van Duyse (1804-1859) was a champion of the Flemish language. In 1836 he helped set up a society called 'De tael is gansch het Volk' - ‘The language is the people’. After a brief career as the town archivist in Dendermonde and as a teacher, he took up the post of city archivist in Ghent in 1838. In 1860 he was posthumously awarded the five-yearly State Prize for Flemish Literature.
The statue was erected in 1893. It is the work of the sculptor Godfried Devreese; the plinth was designed by the renowned architect Victor Horta.
