Jean-Antoine Houdon 
NATIONAL GALLER Y OF ART, WASHINGTON

THE J; PAUL GETTY MUSEUM,,LOS ANGELES

MUSÉE ET DOMAINE NATIONAL DU CHÂTEAU DE VERSAILLES
Anne L Poulet

with

Guilhem Scherf

Ulrike D. Mathies

Christoph Frank

Claude Vandalle

Dean Walker

Monique Barbier

PUBLISHE D BY THE NATIONA L GALLER Y OF ART,

WASHINGTON , IN ASSOCIATIO N WITH THE

UNIVERSIT Y OF CHICAGO PRESS , CHICAGO AND LONDON

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The exhibition at the National Gallery of Art was made possible by

a generous grant from the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation

The exhibition was organized by the National

Gallery of Art, Washington; The J. Paul Getty

Museum, Los Angeles; and the Réunion des

musées nationaux and l'Etablissement public du

musée et du domaine national du château de

Versailles, France.

It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal

Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

EXHIBITION DATES

National Gallery of Art, Washington

4 May - 7 September 2003

The }. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

4 November 2003 - 25 January 2004 „.._ , , ,

Musée et domaine national du château de Versailles

i March - 30 May 2004

Copyright © 2003 Board of Trustees, ,

National Gallery of Art, Washington.

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part (beyond that copying

permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S.

Copyright Law and except by reviewers from the

public press), without written permission from

the publishers,

Front and back cover. Robert Fulton (details),

1803 - 1804, The Detroit Institute of Arts,

Gift of Dexter M. Ferry Jr. (cat 49).

Title page: Morpheus (detail), 1777, Musée du

Louvre, Paris (cat. 7).

Copyright page: Diderot (detail), 1780,

Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (cat. 22).

This book has been produced by the Publishing

Office, National Gallery of Art, Washington.

unwv.nga.gov

Editor in Chief, Judy Metro

Senior Editor, Karen Sagstetter

Production Manager, Chris Vogel

Edited by Tarn Curry Bryfogle,

Chestertown, Maryland

Designed by Studio A, Alexandria, Virginia

Index prepared by Elaine Luthy, New York

Typeset in Scala and Scala Sans by Studio A

Printed on Garda Matt by Conti Tipocolor,

Florence, Italy

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Poulet, Anne L

Jean-Antoine Houdon : sculptor of the

Enlightenment / Anne L Poulet, with

Guilhem Scherf... [et al.],

p. cm.

Catalog of an exhibition held at National Gallery

of Art, Washington, May 4 - Sept 7,2003,

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Nov. 4,

2003 - Jan. 25, 2004, and Musée et domaine

national du château de Versailles, Mar. i -

May 30,2004.

ISBN 0-226-67647-1 (hardcover)

ISBN 0-226-67649-8 (softcover)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Houdon, Jean Antoine, 1741 -1828—Exhibitions.

2. Portrait sculpture, French—Exhibitions.

I. Houdon, Jean Antoine, 1741 -1828. II. National

Gallery of Art (U.S.) III. the J. Paul Getty Museum.

IV. Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et

de Trianón. V. Title,

NB553.H8A4 2003

73o'-92—dc2i 2003002220

Trade edition copublished by

University of Chicago Press

1427 East 6oth Street

Chicago, IL 60637-2954

www.press.uchicago.edu

lo 9876543 2
6 Directors' Foreword

Earl A. Powell III, Deborah Gribbon,

and Pierre Arizzoli-Clémentel

7 Lenders to the Exhibition

Contents

8 Preface and Acknowledgments

Anne L Poulet

12 Note to the Reader

ESSAY S

16 Houdon, "Above All Modern Artists"

Guilhem Scherf

28 Etat des Choses:

A Recently Discovered Document by Houdon

Anne L Poulet with Ulrike D. Mathies and Christoph Frank

40 Houdon and the German Courts:

Serving the Francophile Princes

Ulrike D. Mathies

50 "A Man More Jealous of Glory than of Wealth":

Houdon's Dealings with Russia

Christoph Frank

CATALOGUE

62 Early Works

96 Figures in the Arts

127 Family and Friends

141 Enlightenment Figures

210 Decorative Sculpture

246 American Patriots

279 The Courts of Europe

309 Late Works

340 Boilly's Paintings

347 Abbreviated Chronology of Houdon's Life and Work

Monique Barbier, translated and edited by Anne L Poulet

355 Appendix: Etat des choses renfermées dans les caisses

envoyées à son Altesse Monseigneur le Duc de Saxe Gotha

361 Select Bibliography

372 Index

383 Photographie Crédits
Directors' Foreword

Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828) is generally considered to

have been the greatest sculptor in Europe during the period of

the Enlightenment. He is celebrated for his startlingly lifelike

portraits of the most important figures of the day, including

members of the courts of France, Germany, Sweden, and Russia

as well as artists, aristocrats, scientists, political and military

heroes, and leaders of the banking world in France and Switzerland. Soon after Thomas Jefferson began serving as representative of the new American republic in Paris in 1784, he was

asked to find the best artist to execute a statue of George Washington, and he strongly recommended Houdon. For this commission Houdon crossed the Atlantic in 1785 to model a likeness

of Washington, enhancing a "gallery of worthies" to rival those

of ancient Rome.

Despite Houdon's reputation as the foremost sculptor of

the remarkable era that encompassed the American and French

Revolutions and the Directoire and Empire in France, this is

the first international exhibition devoted to his art. Organized

by the National Gallery of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and

the Réunion des musées nationaux and l'Etablissement public

du musée et du domaine national du château de Versailles,

the presentation includes major sculptures spanning the artist's

entire career, borrowed from collections throughout Europe

and the United States.

Through the generosity of many lenders, the exhibition

ranges from Houdon's earliest works —such as his life-size

anatomical study of the human figure, the Ecorché, created when

he was a twenty-five-year-old student at the Académie de France

in Rome; and the Morpheus, his "reception piece" for membership in the prestigious Académie royale de peinture et de

sculpture in Paris—to late works such as his beautiful portraits

of Napoleon and Josephine and his imposing marble statue of

Voltaire. It represents the height of his popularity with his portrait busts of Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Washington as

well as d'Alembert, Lafayette, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin,

and John Paul Jones. And it includes a number of his famous

mythological and allegorical statues, such as La Frileuse and

Diana the Huntress. Several exciting discoveries distinguish

this exhibition, among them an original plaster bust of the

actress Sophie Arnould, in pristine condition, which had lain

unidentified in storage for nearly a century and a half.

We would like to thank Anne L. Poulet, guest curator, for

her prodigious efforts in organizing this important exhibition.

She also enjoyed a fruitful collaboration on the catalogue with

a group of accomplished scholars, who introduce a body of

new information about the sculptor and an international

perspective on the significance of his work. Scott Schaefer,

curator of European painting and acting curator of European

sculpture at the Getty, is responsible for the installation in Los

Angeles, and Claude Vandalle, curator of sculpture at the Musée

national du château de Versailles, for the presentation in France.

Jean-Antoine Houdon: Sculptor of the Enlightenment is made

possible at the National Gallery of Art by a generous grant from

the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation. We are also very grateful

for the indemnity support provided by the Federal Council on

the Arts and the Humanities.

Earl A. Powell III

Director

National Gallery of Art

Washington

Deborah Gribbon

Director

The]. Paul Getty Museum

Los Angeles

Pierre Arizzoli-Clémentel

Directeur Générale

Musée et domaine national

du château de Versailles

6
Lenders to the Exhibition

Abbaye royale de Châalis — Institut de France

Académie de France à Rome

Akademie der Wissenschaften, Akademiearchiv, Berlin

The Boston Athenaeum

The Detroit Institute of Arts

Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

The Frick Collection, New York

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical

Gardens, San Marino

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca

Lindenau-Museum Altenburg

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris

Musée d'art et d'histoire de Langres

Musée d'art et d'histoire, Neuchâtel

Musée d'art et d'histoire de la Ville de Genève

Musée de la Comédie-Française, Paris

Musée de l'air et de l'espace, Le Bourget-Paris

Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Angers

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans

Musée d'histoire de la médecine, Paris

Musée du Louvre, Paris

Musée Fabre, Montpellier

Musée municipal Ancienne Abbaye, Saint-Léger, Sois sons

Musée national de céramique, Sèvres

Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon

Musée Thomas Henry, Cherbourg-Octeville

Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

National Gallery of Art, Washington

Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

Le Panthéon, Paris

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Mr. and Mrs. Stewart Resnick, Los Angeles

Schlossmuseum Gotha

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preuféischer Kulturbesitz

State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Stiftung Preutëische Schlôsser und Garten BerlinBrandenburg, Potsdam

Stiftung Weimarer Klassik Goethe-Nationalmuseum

United States Naval Academy Museum, Annapolis

Villa Borghese, Rome

Worcester Art Museum

Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven

7
Preface and Acknowledgments

Jean-Antoine Houdon's career coincided with the flowering of

the Enlightenment in Europe, an age when reason was seen as

the avenue to the truth and scholars enthusiastically studied

and wrote about the world around them. There was an explosion of interest in geology, botany, zoology, physics, aeronautics, and archeology, and their empirical study produced

dramatic discoveries and inventions. Major publications were

undertaken to codify the vast knowledge that was accumulated,

the most famous being the Encyclopédie edited by Denis Diderot

and Jean Le Rond d'Alembert. Philosophers, including Voltaire

and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, explored issues of religion, morality, and education. Their thinking, joined by economic forces

for change, led to greater focus on the individual and to enormous social, political, and judicial reforms brought about at the

time of the French Revolution. Houdon, in his art, was drawn

into and influenced by many of these Enlightenment ideas,

including his emphasis on the scientific study of anatomy, his

use of life and death masks to execute portraits, his preference

for natural forms over the artificiality of contemporary French

fashion. In turn, the leaders of the Enlightenment saw in

Houdon's sculpture the concrete expression of their ideals and

of themselves.

Educated in Paris and in Rome during the 17605, Houdon

manifested early on his ambition, independence, and innate

artistic ability. Absorbing the lessons of the Académie royale de

peinture et de sculpture in Paris, where he was awarded the Prix

de Rome in 1761, he also studied intensively, and sometimes

copied, antique classical sculptures. Unlike most of his fellow

students at the Académie de France in Rome, Houdon took

courses with a surgeon to learn human anatomy through the

dissection of corpses and modeling of bone and muscle systems

of the body, resulting in his famous figure of a flayed man, known

as the Ecorché, in 1766. When he returned to Paris in late 1768,

he had a fully formed philosophy: he believed that the role of the

artist was to represent what he saw, accurately but selectively,

ennobling the subject by choosing what was most beautiful or

most telling in the model; to him, what was most beautiful

was most natural.

Diderot and Frédéric-Melchior Grimm were among those

Enlightenment figures who most admired Houdon. Grimm was

responsible for introducing Houdon to Duke Ernst II of the German court at Saxe-Gotha, an early and avid collector of the sculptor's work. Grimm and Diderot also promoted Houdon's work

to Catherine II of Russia throughout the 17708 and early 17805,

acting as her agents in purchasing, among other works, portraits

of Voltaire and the comte de Buffon. At the Salon of 1771 Houdon

exhibited a portrait bust of Diderot, an extraordinary likeness

that also embodied the subject's fiery wit and intelligence. This

led to many other portraits of the great men and women of the

Enlightenment, some commissioned by the sitters or sponsoring organizations, others executed at the sculptor's initiative. In

his studio he displayed many of these works, and it became a

regular stop for visiting statesmen as well as for French collectors and amateurs.

By the time Louis XVI ascended to the throne in 1774,

Houdon had already established an international reputation. The

due d'Angiviller, who was director of the Bâtiments du Roi, disliked Houdon, perhaps because of his independence, and gave

him only one official commission for the crown, that for the

marble statue of the maréchal de Tourville in the series of "Great

Men of France." Nonetheless, he found patrons in courts all over

Europe, not only in Germany and Russia but also in Poland and

Sweden, as well as prominent individuals in France, Switzerland,

and the fledgling United States.

Freemasonry was of essential importance for Houdon's

Enlightenment contacts. In 1778 he was invited to join the Loge

des Neuf Soeurs, a masonic lodge founded in Paris in 1776 whose

membership comprised philosophers, scientists, artists, clerics,

and musicians. General sympathy was felt for the American war

of independence and the ideals of liberty and equality that it represented. Among Houdon's commissions directly associated

with the Loge des Neuf Soeurs were busts of Benjamin Franklin,

8
then American minister to France and elected a member of the

lodge the same year as Houdon; Voltaire, who joined the lodge

just before his death in May 1778; and the American naval hero

John Paul Jones, all represented in this exhibition.

Thomas Jefferson, who succeeded Franklin as minister to

France, regarded Houdon as a friend and greatly admired his

work. He was responsible for Houdon's receiving the commissions to do a statue of George Washington and a bust of the

marquis de Lafayette. He also sat for a portrait by Houdon before

he left Paris in 1789 and acquired a number of other busts by

the artist that he installed in his home, Monticello. Houdon's

connection with the great men of America continued into the

early years of the nineteenth century, with portraits of the inventor Robert Fulton and his close friend the diplomat and poet Joel

Barlow in 1804.

In the period leading up to the French Revolution, Houdon

executed some of his most powerful portraits, such as those of

Jacques Necker and Jean-Sylvain Bailly. In pose and expression

these busts reflect the spirit and strong emotion of the leaders

of this time. In the aftermath of the Revolution, he continued to

work with the same skill and vigor but had fewer patrons. Under

Napoleon he adapted his style to suit the taste of the Empire and

did receive a number of official commissions, including those for

portraits of Napoleon and Josephine, works that reveal an undiminished ability to create an accurate depiction not only of his

sitters' physical appearance but of their inner life. Houdon's

studio remained a focus of pilgrimage for artists and collectors

alike, as is recorded in two masterful paintings by Boilly that

show the sculptor at work there, surrounded by myriad sculptures and busts arranged on pedestals and shelves that line the

walls. The last sculpture Houdon exhibited at the Salon was the

marble statue of Voltaire, shown in 1812 when the sculptor was

seventy-one. Basing the face on the portrait he had done from life

in 1778, he carved a standing figure of the aged philosopher,

draped in a simple robe, wearing a knotted scarf at his neck and

holding in his hands a sheaf of paper and a quill pen, the tools

of his profession. A comparison with Boilly's portrait of Houdon

of a few years earlier shows the sculptor standing before his work,

wearing a similar robe or coat while modeling day. It would seem

that in his late portrait of Voltaire, one of the greatest men of the

age, Houdon was also portraying himself.

* * *

The study of the life and work of Jean-Antoine Houdon in preparation for this exhibition has been an extremely rewarding and

satisfying project, owing to the full and enthusiastic support of

the National Gallery of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the

Musée national du château de Versailles. I would like to express

my deep appreciation to the directors of all three institutions —

Earl A. Powell III, Deborah Gribbon, and Pierre ArizzoliClémentel — for their commitment to the exhibition. It was

Alan Shestack, deputy director of the National Gallery of Art,

who invited me to serve as guest curator of the exhibition. I am

grateful to him for his appreciation of Houdon's work and for

his unwavering support.

The goal of this exhibition and catalogue has been to show

the full range of Houdon's artistic activity and to explore the

circumstances that led to his recognition on an international

scale. Through the generosity of many lenders, a significant

number of the sculptor's finest works have been assembled for

the exhibition. And through the diligent and informed research

of the distinguished contributors to the catalogue, a deeper

understanding of the sculptor and his patrons has been achieved.

It has been a great pleasure to work with Guilhem Scherf,

who has brought his extensive knowledge of French eighteenthcentury sculpture as well as his special interest in Houdon to

bear not only on his essay, in which he places the sculptor in the

context of the period, and on his individual entries in the catalogue,

but on the preparations for the entire exhibition. His collaboration has been invaluable to its success. I especially want to thank

Ulrike D. Mathies, who has worked with me as research assistant on the exhibition for four years and has written several texts

for the catalogue. Her dedication, enthusiasm, and friendship

9
have made the project a pleasure, and the high quality of her

work greatly enriches the publication. Responsible for research

in German museums and archives, she has made several important discoveries, shedding new light on this aspect of Houdon's

career. I am also deeply grateful to Christoph Frank for sharing

his broad knowledge of Houdon's relationship with Grimm and

Diderot and the writers of the Enlightenment as well as the sculptor's association with the Russian court and Russian patrons in

his essay and catalogue entries. Claude Vandalle has not only

written entries for the catalogue on important sculptures by

Houdon in several French collections but has also been helpful

with the negotiation of loans and the planning of the exhibition

at Versailles. Dean Walker graciously agreed to lend the marble

bust of Benjamin Franklin from the Philadelphia Museum of

Art's collection to the exhibition as well as to write the entry for

the catalogue.

Monique Barbier deserves special thanks for doing extensive

archival research in France with admirable speed, thoroughness,

and accuracy, and for compiling the chronology for the catalogue,

which draws on a number of unpublished documents. I wish

to thank Pascaline Allez for her assistance with organization

and research in the early stages of the exhibition. I am grateful

to my valued colleagues Jeffrey Munger and Ellenor Alcorn for

having encouraged me to undertake the Houdon exhibition, and

to John Walsh for his enduring interest, kindness, and belief in

the project. I would also like to express my appreciation to the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for its support of the initial phase

of my work on Houdon and for awarding me two generous

Lamb/Mellon research travel grants.

The organization of the exhibition has been facilitated

throughout by the genial collaboration and expertise of D. Dodge

Thompson and Ann B. Robertson, assisted by Abbie Sprague,

Tamara Wilson, and Elizabeth Middelkoop in the department of

exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art. Susan Arensberg and

Carroll Moore have shown great perspicacity in their interpretation of Houdon's work in educational texts and in film. I wish

to thank editor in chief Judy Metro, senior editor Karen

Sagstetter, and production manager Chris Vogel for their careful supervision of the catalogue's progress as well as Mariah

Shay, Sara Sanders-Buell, and Ira Bartfield for their skillful

handling and organization of photography for the catalogue. It

has been a particular pleasure to work with Tarn Curry Bryfogle,

editor, whose sensitive, intelligent approach to the material and

unfailing attention to detail while maintaining a vision of the

whole book enhanced the contributions of each author. Antonio

Alcala and his colleagues at Studio A are responsible for the

beautiful design of the catalogue.

Mark Leithauser's enthusiasm for and understanding of

Houdon's sculpture are reflected in the handsome installation

he designed for the exhibition in Washington, working with a

talented team that includes William Bowser and Donna Kirk,

while Gordon Anson provided the evocative lighting. Registrar

Michelle Fondas assumed the complex task of arranging for the

transportation of the works of art throughout the exhibition's

tour. Merv Richard, deputy chief of conservation, and sculpture

conservators Shelley Sturman, Bethann Heinbaugh, and Judy

Ozone have overseen the safe packing and display of the works

while also lending their expertise to the care of works that need

special handling.

On behalf of all contributors to the catalogue, I would like to

thank the following institutions who made their research collections and resources available: Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preufeischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin; Museum of Fine Arts Library, Boston;

Bibliotheque Paul Marmottan, Boulogne-Billancourt; Harvard

University Libraries, Cambridge: Fine Arts Library, Houghton

Library, and Widener Library; Archives departementales de la

Cote d'Or, Dijon; Archives municipales, Dijon; Musée des BeauxArts, Dijon; Thüringisches Staatsarchiv, Gotha; Forschungsbibliothek, Gotha; Library of the Courtauld Institute, London; Getty

Research Institute, Los Angeles; Archives départementales des

Landes, Mont-de-Marsan; Frick Art Reference Library, New York;

Archives nationales de France, Paris; Bibliothéque d'art et

10
d'archeologie, Jacques Doucet, Paris; Bibliotheque du Grand Orient de France, Paris; Bibliotheque historique de la Ville de Paris;

Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris; Musee de la ComedieFrancaise, Paris; Ecole nationale superieure des beaux-arts, Paris;

Musee du Louvre, Paris: Bibliotheque et archives, Departement

des arts decoratifs, Departement des sculptures; Landeshauptarchiv

Schwerin; Bibliotheque municipale, Versailles; Musee Lambinet, Versailles; Thuringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Weimar;

Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv, Weimar. In addition, I wish to thank

the board and members of the French Heritage Society for their

moral and material support of the catalogue's publication.

I would also like to thank the many individuals who generously provided information, advice, and support during the

preparation of the exhibition: Mikael Ahlund, Stockholm;

Daniel Alcouffe, Paris; Sergei Androssov, St. Petersburg; Colin

Bailey, New York; Joseph Baillio, New York; Isabelle Balandre,

Paris; Alain Barbier, Paris; Jane Bassett, Los Angeles; Arthur

Beale, Boston; Patrice Bellanger, Paris; Shelley Bennett, San

Marino; Kornelia von Berswordt-Wallrabe, Schwerin; Bernard

Black, Paris; Sally Brazil, New York; Charissa Bremer-David,

Los Angeles; Georges Brunei, Paris; Peter Brosche, Bonn;

Maraike Buckling, Frankfurt; Marietta Cambareri, Boston; James

Cheevers, Annapolis; Susan Chore, New York; Philip Conisbee,

Washington; Brian Considine, Los Angeles; Leon Dalva, New

York; Alan P. Darr, Detroit; James D. Draper, New York; Francois

Fabius, Paris; Regis Fabre, Draguignan; Marie-Rose Figueiredo,

Lisbon; Horst Fleischer, Rudolstadt; Peggy Fogelman, Los Angeles; Alberic Froissart, Paris; Detlef Fuchs, Rheinsberg; Peter

Fusco, Los Angeles; Ulrike Goetz, Paris; Michael Hall, New York;

Antoinette Halle, Paris; Pamela Hatchfield, Boston; Johanna

Hecht, New York; Kristina Hegner, Schwerin; Brigitte Heise,

Liibeck; Bernhard Heitmann, Hamburg; Brigitte HerbachSchmidt, Karlsruhe; Katherine Holbrow, Williamstown; Cornelia Hopf, Gotha; Hanna-Sabine Hummel, Eisenach; Saskia

Hiineke, Potsdam; Joel Huthwohl, Paris; Dominique Jacquot,

Toulouse; Bernard Jazzar, Los Angeles; Bernard Jeannot, Paris;

Tracey Kamerer, Richmond; Sergei Karp, St. Petersburg; Wolfgang Knobloch, Berlin; Michael Knoche, Weimar; Jutta Kohlenbach, Berlin; Leonore Koschnick, Berlin; Paul Lang, Geneva;

Madame Lebail, Paris; Madame Leclos, Mont-de-Marsan; Vincent Lieber, Coppet; Patrick Le Nouene, Angers; Mary Levkoff,

Los Angeles; Sonja Lucas, Bonn; Alison Luchs, Washington;

Alexandre Maral, Aix-en-Provence; Patrice Marandel, Los Angeles; Thomas Matuszak, Altenburg; Lee Miller, San Francisco;

Ulrike Muller-Harang, Weimar; Alfred Necker, Geneva; Jutta

Penndorf, Altenburg; Christoph Graf von Pfeil, Munich;

Joachim Pissarro, New Haven; Charles Porset, Paris; Petra

Rau, Frankfurt; Tamara Preaud, Paris; Marcel Roethlisberger,

Geneva; Helmut Rohlfing, Gottingen; Bertrand Rondeau, Paris;

Dominique Roussel, Soissons; David Sarkisyan, Moscow; Ljuba

Savinskaya, Moscow; Rupert Schaab, Gotha; Scott Schaefer, Los

Angeles; Allmuth Schuttwolf, Gotha; Emmanuel Schwartz, Paris;

Sophie Serra, Langres; Claire Sibille, Paris; Anthony Sigel, Boston; Benjamin Simon, Cherbourg; Emmanuel Starcky, Dijon;

Susan Stein, Charlottesville; Guy Stair-Sainty, New York; Christian Theuerkauff, Berlin; Monsieur Tilliati, Le Bourget; Marjorie Trusted, London; Walter Tschopp, Neuchatel; Gert-Dieter

Ulferts, Weimar; Dieter Vorsteher, Berlin; Uta Wallenstein,

Gotha; Uwe Jens Wandel, Gotha; Richard Wendorf, Boston; Patricia Wengraf, London; Robert Wenley, London; the late Michael

Wentworth, Boston; Lorenz Willmann, Cambridge, MA, and

Groningen; Charles Wirz, Geneva.

Finally, I wish to thank Jeffrey and Jane Marshall for their

enthusiastic support of the exhibition, their belief in its importance, and their constant encouragement and friendship. My

heartfelt appreciation goes to the members of my family, especially to Francois Poulet for his ever-present help, understanding,

and wise counsel.

ANN E L. POULET

II
Note to the Reader

Dimensions

Measurements of the sculptures are given in centimeters,

specifying height (H.)—with and without the base —width

(W.), and depth (D.),when known.

Translations

Quotations from primary, unpublished sources are given in

the original language under Provenance and Related Works;

English translations of similar sources are provided in the

texts, with the original French or German quotations cited in

endnotes. If the material has been previously published, English translations are provided by the authors and approved by

Anne L. Poulet.

Texts originally written in French by Guilhem Scherf and

Claude Vandalle were translated by Jane Marie Todd and

reviewed by the authors and by Anne L. Poulet.

Special terms

agréé—a student at the Académie royale de peinture et de

sculpture in Paris who has been admitted as a candidate for

membership pending the approval of his reception piece.

à l'antique —a portrait bust in which the sitter is shown without

a wig, nude or wearing an antique garment such as a toga.

à la française—a portrait bust in which the sitter wears contemporary French dress.

cachet de l'atelier—a. round red wax stamp inscribed "ACADEM.

/ ROYALE / DE PEINTURE / ET SCULPT. / HOUDON / SC."

that Houdon applied to many of his plaster and some of his

terracotta sculptures between 1776 and 1793, and perhaps later.

cold stamp —a. stamp pounded into the surface of a bronze

after the sculpture has been cast.

cold work—work done with a chisel, punch, or file on the surface of a bronze after it has been cast.

death mask —a positive mask in plaster made from an impression taken, usually in plaster, from the face of a person who

has died.

life mask — a positive mask in plaster made from an impression taken, usually in plaster, from the face of a living person,

except for the area of the eyes.

Loge des Neuf Soeurs —a lodge of freemasons, named for the

nine muses, formed in Paris in 1776. Its membership consisted of prominent scientists, musicians, artists, clergymen,

and philosophers.

sculpteur (or peintre) du Roi—sculptor or painter who is a member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, Paris.

tête d'expression —a study made by a sculptor, painter, or draftsman of a head expressing emotions such as anger, sadness,

envy, or piety.

tête nue - a head of a man or woman that is represented naturally, without a wig, hat, or other covering.

Bibliographic references

Full references are given in a general bibliography at the back

of the book, with short citations used in the texts and notes

(including authors' surnames and dates of publication), unless

a source is cited in only one essay or catalogue entry, in which

case the reference is given in full the first time it appears, with

short forms used for subsequent mentions. Exhibition catalogues are treated similarly (short citations include cities and

dates of the exhibitions' first showing). Archival references

are abbreviated throughout, and a list of abbreviations is provided below.

List of Abbreviations

Journals

AA F—Archives de l'art français

BSHAF— Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de l'art français

GBA — Gazette des beaux-arts

NAA F—Nouvelles archives de l'art français

RAAM —Revue de l'art ancien et moderne

SIRIO —Sbornik imperatorskogo Russkogo istoricheskogo

obshchestva

12
Institutions and Archival Sources

AD H —Archives départementales de l'Hérault, Montpellier

AMAH —Archives of the Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva

AM M F—Archives of the Musée des monuments français, Paris

A MN —Archives des musées nationaux, Palais du Louvre

AN—Archives nationales, Paris

AN, Min. Cent.—Archives nationales, Paris, Minutier Central

BHVDP — Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris

B M V —Bibliothèque municipale, Versailles, Don Frick

BN-Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris

BNEst— Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, cabinet des estampes

D A — Duveen Archives, J P G M

Deloynes — Collection of manuscripts and printed

pamphlets, begun by Mariette, continued by Cochin, and

completed by Deloynes (BNEst)

FLB — Forschungs- und Landesbibliothek, Gotha

G NM — Goethe-Nationalmuseum, Weimar

G S A —Goethe- und S chiller-Archiv, Weimar

GStAPK —Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preufèischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin

HAAB — Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, Weimar

HStA—Thüringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar, Hausarchiv

JPGM — J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

LACMA —Los Angeles County Museum of Art

M F A — Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

NAD —National Academy of Design, New York

N G A —National Gallery of Art, Washington

NStUB —Niedersàchsische Staats- und Universitàtsbibliothek Gottingen

P M L — Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

RGADA —Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnikh

aktov, Moscow

StAB — Staatsarchiv, Basel, Sarasinisches Familienarchiv,

Privat-Archive

ThStA—Thüringisches Staatsarchiv, Bestand Herzogliches

Museum, Gotha

we A—Wallace Collection Archives, London

J

3

Essays

HOUDON, "ABOVE ALL MODERN ARTISTS"

Guilhem Scherf

ccording to Jean-Antoine Houdon, "one of the most beautiful attributes of the difficult art

of statuary is that it preserves forms in all their truth and renders almost imperishable

the images of men who have brought their nation glory or happiness. That idea has

followed me constantly and encouraged me in my long labors."1 For a sculpteur du Roi in the

eighteenth century, the ultimate goal was to create an equestrian monument. That meant rising to the level of Charles-Antoine Coysevox, Martin Desjardins, François Girardon, JeanBaptiste II Lemoyne, Edme Bouchardon, or Etienne-Maurice Falconet. For a long time Houdon

believed he would create such a monument to the glory of George Washington, and he went to

America in 1785 in the hope of convincing Congress.2

The economic situation in France in the two decades preceding the Revolution (1769-1789)

hardly allowed for the undertaking of expensive sculptural programs, whether their costs were to

be assumed by the crown or by the provinces. The only substantive project set in motion was a

monument in honor of Louis XVI, to be placed in Brest facing the ocean. And in 1785 both Houdon

and Augustin Pajou vied for that commission—the former supported by the bishop of SaintBrieuc, the latter by the comte d'Angiviller. In June of that year the Estates of Brittany prudently

decided to organize a formal competition, with models sent to them. Houdon submitted a proposal in 1786 before the project was definitively abandoned.3

 He had just triumphed over his

other rival, Jean-Jacques Caffieri, winning a commission from the Commonwealth of Virginia to

create a statue of Washington: his friendship with Thomas Jefferson had prevailed over earlier

ties between Caffieri and Benjamin Franklin.4

If Houdon was intensely driven to obtain commissions for monuments in the mid-i78os and

during the Revolution, it was not solely for his personal prestige or financial gain: he wanted

to avenge himself before his colleagues in the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture

and, above all, to compensate for the ostracism of the director of the Bâtiments du Roi, the

Detail of Winter, also called La Frileuse, cat. 38

17

A
powerful comte d'Angiviller, who was placed in charge of royal

commissions when Louis XVI ascended to the throne in 1774.

D'Angiviller, a personal friend of the sovereign, had begun to

commission statues of the prominent men of France from the

sculpteurs du Roi in 1775. These commissions were prestigious

for at least three reasons: first, they were intended ultimately

for the adornment of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre; second,

they were to be first exhibited at the entrance to the Salon in the

courtyard of the Louvre, where they would be highly visible and

extensively discussed by the critics; and finally, the remuneration for them was high: 10,000 livres, with the marble provided.

As an official member of the Académie royale since 1777,

Houdon was entitled to receive such a commission, but he had

to wait until those with more seniority were accommodated.

Professors Pajou and Caffieri, assistant professors Etienne

Pierre Adrien Gois and Louis-Philippe Mouchy, and long-time

members Pierre-François Berruer and Félix Lecomte therefore

submitted statues for the series to the Salons of 1777 and 1779.

Some preferential treatment was nevertheless obvious: Pajou

was invited to create two statues, those of René Descartes and

Jacques Bénigne Bossuet; and Clodion, who was not yet a

full member of the academy, received the commission for

Montesquieu, the model for which he exhibited at the Salon

of 1779. Notice was taken of that injustice and presumably

contributed to the poor reception of his plaster:

I don't know... why M. Houdon, already a member of

the Académie, whose merit is founded on brilliant

successes, was not preferred to the artist responsible for

the statue of Montesquieu, M. Clodion, who is only an

agréé, who is unknown, and who has made his debut

with a work that is universally condemned. I questioned

that modest man, whose only response was silence. I

was confirmed in my opinion that the funds the king

intended for the advancement of the arts would be

diverted to reward groveling subjects who curried favor

from the premier peintre and director. In any case, M.

Houdon is vindicated in the surprise all art lovers feel in

not seeing him employed.

In 1777 and 1779 Houdon's submissions to the Salon had been

numerous and spectacular, though for the most part limited to

busts: "M. Houdon is hard-working and loves his art, two major

sources of success; condemned for several years to do only

portraits, his genius may be sadly fettered and may prevent us

from seeing all his merit. It would be desirable to provide the

means of encouragement to persons who prove capable. One's

soul shrivels when one does only small things; M. Houdon is very

young and deserves someone to come to his aid." D'Angiviller

understood immediately and commissioned Houdon to create

the Maréchal de Tourville (see cat. 52) a few weeks after the Salon

of 1779 closed; at the same time, Pajou was asked to contribute

his third "Great Man," a statue of Biaise Pascal.

This was not the first time Houdon had endured official

disfavor. The catalogue for the Salon of 1775 ^sts h*8 plaster

model for Woman Stepping out of Her Bath (lost), which was

probably not shown, considering the critics never mentioned

it. A note from d'Angiviller to Jean-Baptiste Pierre, director of

the Académie royale and premier peintre du Roi, on 4 July 1775,

set the censorious tone he wished to see applied by members

of the committee responsible for selecting the works for the

Salon: "However persuaded I may be of the attention members

of the committee will pay to seeing that, in [the Salon of 1775],

no work slips through that may offend morals, owing to indecent nudity, I feel obliged to recommend that they carefully

attend to observing that precept... and, since officers of the

academy are not subject to committee review, I exhort them to

be all the more severe in the judgment of their own works, in

terms of the decency they ought to have in order to be exhibited

before the public." In 1779 d'Angiviller refused to have

Houdon's Bather executed in marble for the king. In addition,

all Houdon's nude female statues were turned down for the

Salon during the reign of Louis XVI, and none was acquired

by the royal administration. The artist did not display his

plaster of Diana the Huntress (see cat. 35) or his standing Naiad

(lost) at the Salon of 1777, nor did he display his marble of La

Frileuse (cat. 38) at the Salon of 1783 or even a reduction of it

in 1785: "Tomorrow we will examine the pieces to be admitted

to the Salon. Two half-size figures by M. Houdon were brought

in: one, which is draped, is not wonderful; the other might not

pass because of its kind of nudity. A completely nude figure is

not as indecent as those that are draped with a false modesty."

Their absence disappointed Houdon's admirers: "That rare

talent makes us sorry not to see the large figures announced in

the catalogue for the Louvre exhibition." But the moral order

set in place under Louis XVI, coinciding with the imprisonment of notorious libertines (such as the comte de Mirabeau

and marquis de Sade), would not stop Houdon: his marble

Diana, dating from 1780, has very visible genitalia. No one before

him had dared to depict a full-scale female nude (without

18
HOUDON , "ABOV E AL L MODER N ARTISTS "

drapery) so realistically. Christophe-Gabriel Allegrain's

Diana (fig. i), on view in the sculptor's studio on the outskirts

of the Salon of 1777 and celebrated as "the masterpiece of

18

modern sculpture," appears sexless by comparison, as does

Pajou's Psyche, the plaster for which was withdrawn from

the Salon of 1785 after a complaint from the parish priest of

19

Saint-Germain 1'Auxerrois.

Houdon circumvented the Salon and systematically showed

his rejected works, or those subject to rejection, in his studio at

the Bibliothèque du Roi, prompting some to criticize: "Such

innovations must have been frowned on by the Académie royale;

and they display a certain spirit of charlatanism." That last

word is a strong one, but Houdon's most rancorous enemy, his

eternally jealous colleague Caffieri, had used it first:

What confirms his great reputation, or rather his charlatanry, with the public is that he shows his work gratis

all year long at the Bibliothèque du Roi. Nevertheless,

people tip the Swiss guard, who is assigned by M.

Houdon to detail at length the beauties of every figure

and portrait, of which there are countless, since the artist

produces a great deal of merchandise. The guard takes

great care in escorting the crowd, and, after eyeing the

free gift, in saying "Ladies and Gentlemen, send us your

relations, your friends, your acquaintances, since M.

Houdon is the most skillful sculptor in Paris."

21

This act of denunciation had repercussions at the Bâtiments

du Roi: Montucla, d'Angiviller's chief clerk, added a note to

the letter, "This is too true in the opinion of the officials,"

suggesting that the openness of Houdon's studio was not

appreciated in high places. The purpose of that openness in fact

was not only to show works that could not be exhibited at the

Salon (statuary that was censored or too heavy to be transported

upstairs): everyone saw that it also served purely commercial

aims. This was a sensitive subject for d'Angiviller, who was

then suppressing the Académie de Saint-Luc in an attempt to

restore the authority of the Académie royale de peinture et

de sculpture; he would undoubtedly not be happy about the

openly commercial aims of one of the latter's members. This

was obviously the result Caffieri desired.

Of course, the problems between Houdon and the king's

administration in no way obscure the originality of the sculptor's

art. Marginalized by d'Angiviller, he nevertheless found patrons

to support his genius, beginning with the procureur general of

i. Christophe-Gabriel Allegrain, Diana, 1777, marble,

Musée du Louvre, Paris.

the Carthusian order in Rome, the duke of Saxe-Gotha, the comte

d'Artois, the financiers Simon-Charles Boutin and Anne-Charles

Modenx de Saint-Wast, the banker Jean Girardot de Marigny,

the duc d'Orléans, Voltaire's niece Mme Denis, Catherine II of

Russia, Thomas Jefferson and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Once a commission was obtained, the artist was driven to find

new ways to treat a model or a concept. His Saint Bruno (cat. 4)

referred to the dynamic statue of the saint by Michel-Ange Slodtz

at Saint Peter's basilica but proposed an introverted stance.

23

His Summer (cat. 40) as well as Ceres for the château de Maisons

created an original iconography, distinct from traditional interpretations. His Diana (cat. 35) reinvented the theme, linking

a face devoid of passion to a sexual femininity. His Bather,

accompanied by a black servant woman (cat. 42), was unprecedented, and it introduced that subject to the history of sculpture

in the form of a tableau-vivant. Houdon's Seated Voltaire (see

Frank essay, fig. 2) was a soothing response to those whom JeanBaptiste Pigalle's Nude Voltaire (fig. 2) had angered. Houdon

deified "the old man of Ferney" by combining allusions to

antiquity (the robe like a toga and the traditional philosophers'

headband) with a realistic likeness of the face, illuminated

19
and humanized by the famous smile. With Diderot's support,

Pigalle had adopted an intellectual and aesthetically radical

vision, combining an emaciated, dying body with a head full of

life. That type of conflict was alien to Houdon, who practiced an

art of synthesis above all. One can see this also in his figure of

George Washington (see cat. 47, fig. 3). The hero was loath to see

a statue done of him in the antique style, so the sculptor depicted

him in his general's uniform, his sword hung from a Roman

fasces (symbolizing the thirteen federated states), with a plow

at his feet alluding to Cincinnatus, prematurely returned to

civilian life. That deft mixture of genres —contemporary

clothing and classical symbols —also distinguishes Houdoris

Washington from the "Great Men" in the comte d'Angiviller's

series: its forceful sobriety and intellectual efficacy in some ways

eclipse the Tourville, impeccably accurate historically in its

seventeenth-century costume, but overly complicated.

•f PORTRAI T BUST S -f

Diderot once said, "The portrait is so difficult that Pigal told me

he had never done one without being tempted to give it up. In

fact, it is especially on the face that life, character, and physiognomy reside." The portrait bust established Houdon's reputation. His unparalleled gallery of subjects has often been

enumerated: portraits of the royal family and the court, ministers, aristocrats, magistrates, doctors, astronomers, writers,

wives of bankers, and heroes of the day graced various social

circles. Of these, notable examples include the influential Loge

des Neuf Soeurs, Mme Necker's salon, which included Enlightenment thinkers and Swiss financiers, and the Lycée des arts.

2. Jean-Baptiste Pigalle,

Nude Voltaire, 3776,

marble, Musée du

Louvre, Paris.

Although Houdon is rarely cited in memoirs of the time, unlike

Lemoyne and even Pajou, who were more worldly, he was nevertheless present everywhere. His tour de force was to present

his busts at a time when critics were weary of the proliferation

of portraits at the Salon: "a host of busts, portraits of nameless

men.... What do the images of these financiers... these chief

clerks or assistant clerks, these doleful marquises, these anonymous countesses, these no-account judges' wives matter to

us?... May we see the bust of an illustrious warrior or a man

of genius alongside that of a pen-pusher?" This comment,

remarkably, echoes one made at the Salon thirty years earlier,

referring ironically to the "mob of obscure men with no name,

no talent, no reputation, no physiognomy even; all these creatures whose only merit is to be alive." Houdon's portraits of

the celebrities of his day, which were regularly discussed by the

exhibition critics, stood out from the crowd of unknowns, thus

flattering their sitters. The praise addressed to the busts reflected

back on the subjects: "M. Houdon lacks only the means to make

his portraits speak, since, as for likeness, he lacks nothing"; "It

seems that the only thing missing from M. Houdon's portraits

in order for them to be the people themselves is the color of the

pupils and skin, parts that sculpture cannot render."28

The essential quality of the portraitist is expressed succinctly:

"I believed I would be allowed to take pride in these works,

29

whose sole merit is likeness." To come as close as possible to

30

the anatomical truth of his models, Houdon employed a rigorous system of measurements using calipers: his exactitude

was demonstrated when the exhumed skull of John Paul Jones

was compared with the head sculpted by Houdon and the

dimensions were identical (see cat. 44); for his planned equestrian statue of Washington, he boasted of having taken "the necessary measurements from the general himself. " He even took

impressions from the faces of the living (Lafayette, Dumouriez,

Boissy d'Anglas) and of the dead (Rousseau, Mirabeau, Méjanes,

Collin d' Harleville). The use of castings from nature had been

known since antiquity, but the practice was not widespread

among portraitists in the eighteenth century, even Coysevox

and Pigalle, two artists with a realist sensibility. In the absence

of the sitter, Houdon wanted, whenever possible, to have at least

34

a flesh-and-blood person in front of him. "For more than an

hour," d'Angiviller himself stood in for the minister of finance

Jacques Turgot, to whom he bore a publicly notorious resemblance; and Gouverneur Morris posed in Paris for the statue

of Washington, noting that "the humble role of artist's model

36

is rather tiring.

20
HOUDON , 

ABOV E AL L MODER N ARTISTS 

3. Jean-Jacques Caffieri, Claude-Adrien Helvétius, 1772, marble,

Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Houdon's naturalism was given its utmost expression in

the attention he paid to his subjects' eyes, instilling in them

a presence that was unanimously hailed: "M. Houdon may

be the first sculptor who knew how to do eyes. " His technique

first appeared on the Diderot at the Salon of 1771 (cat. 19), shortly

after his return from Rome, where he had been able to study

Bernini's busts. Carving the iris into the shape of a bowl, he

evoked the pupil by hollowing out a small depression in the

bottom, and he left a section of material in relief along the

edge of the iris to allow for the play of light and shadow and

to simulate the liveliness of the gaze. This formula, which he

applied systematically thereafter, brought new life to the execution of the sculpted portrait.

At the Académie royale the comte de Caylus had been an

advocate of using the uncarved white eyes seen on early Roman

busts: "The sculptor must not mark the pupils, because he must

not color.... In addition, there is more art and more advantage

to letting the beholder imagine the action of the eyes." But

that radical opinion was not shared by all: "The most obstinate

advocates of antiquity could not deny that the art with which

the moderns give expression and life to the eyes by carving the

pupil adds a great deal of value to their heads." The way

Lemoyne and his students rendered the eyes differed from

Houdon's technique. The pupil of the eye in Caffieri's

Claude-Adrien Helvétius (fig. 3) is hollowed but not deeply,

and the contour of the iris is just incised. The same handling

is evident in Pajou's Comte de Buffon "à la française" of 1773

4l

and in his Nathalie de Labor de of 1789. Pajou is the artist who

hollows the pupil the least, probably to differentiate himself

from Houdon.

Houdon also distinguished himself from his colleagues in

the way he treated hair—perceived in its totality, sculpted in

masses —and sometimes in his adeptness at depicting the

sitter with parted lips. He shows the subject's teeth in the

Sophie Arnould and in the portrait of his wife (cats. 8-9 and

42

17) and represents the mouth slightly open in busts of Diderot,

Miromesnil, Franklin (cats. 19, 30, 43), and Mme Victoire, subtly animating the surface of the face and using the shadow of

the mouth to balance those formed by the hollows of the eyes.

Houdon explored a variety of formulas for presenting the

head and torso. For portraits in the classical style he showed sitters with short hair and employed a truncation that eliminated

the shoulders (see his busts of Diderot, Rousseau, and d'Alembert; cats. 19,26, 27). For other portraits he depicted his subjects

in contemporary dress or in uniform and included most of the

torso (such as the duchesse de Mecklenburg or Miromesnil; see

cat. 30). The head could be turned to the side or facing the

viewer; there was no rule, and in this, he shared the approach

of other portraitists. For large-scale compositions that did not

allow a rounded truncation at the shoulders, he confronted the

problem of how to represent the arms. Like his fellow sculptors, he dissimulated the limbs in flowing drapery (see the busts

of Mme Girardot de Vermenoux, Louis XVI, and Mme Adélaïde;

cats. 31, 50, and 51). But in his portrait of Mirabeau (fig. 4), he

was bold enough to evoke an arm in motion, pointing forward;

this extraordinarily powerful bust flings a magnificent stump

toward the viewer. No one before Houdon had created such an

audacious composition in marble. In any case, the critics at the

Salon of 1791 did not let him get away with it: "It is beautiful,

but it is troubling that the arms are so disagreeably cut off';

"sculptors should avoid cutting off the arm at the elbow—such

43

a revolting image." Now one sees the amputation of the arm

/i/i

more positively, as a sign of the orator's efficacious brutality.

Houdon's genius lay in his capacity to show the individual

as a whole, beyond the mimetic representation of the features,

even at the risk of sometimes disappointing a model. Princess

21
4- Houdon, Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, 1791, marble,

Private Collection.

Dashkova posed for her portrait in 1780 and remarked: "When

the bust was finished, I could not help but notice that the artist

had too much taste to capture a resemblance; instead of the

simple Ninette I was, he draped me like a smart French duchess

45

with a lace headdress and my neck uncovered." Houdon's

gallery of portraits, unequaled in scope and diversity in the eighteenth century, depicts individuals with extraordinary realism,

not only their characters but also their social stations. Diderot

had written, "Strictly speaking, it is not individuals that must be

46

placed onstage but conditions." The bust of Princess Dashkova

has disappeared, thus it is not possible to have an opinion on

it, but most of Houdon's portraits clearly project a sense of their

sitters' social rank.

and Voltaire; cats. 19-22 and 23 - 25)—but only in moderation,

for marble was expensive — or in the case of Miromesnil

(cat. 30), presumably responding to a specific request from

the patron.

Different considerations arise in relation to Houdon's

exploitation of his works for commercial purposes. In such

cases, he used bronze very rarely (preferring to keep this favored

material in reserve) and instead cast terracotta copies or, more

often, plasters. Houdon was the first modern sculptor who did

not hesitate to mass produce his sculptures or to delegate production to his workshop. In this he far surpassed Caffieri,

though the latter inundated academic institutions with various

castings of his works. In fact, one scholar has described

48

Houdon's studio as a "veritable factory." The terms of his contracts with Sophie Arnould, John Paul Jones (cats. 8, 44), and

Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte de Guibert support this designa49

tion. Houdon even thought of executing one hundred or two

50

hundred plasters of Washington, "at 2 louis apiece." When he

sent plasters of his sculptures to the Société des beaux-arts in

Montpellier, he was careful to list his prices, stipulating that it

was forbidden for the society to have casts made of them. It

was, in fact, an exclusive right of his studio. One ought not to

conclude, however, that Houdon cast many plasters of all of his

portraits: either he executed the terms of a contract or he took

advantage of the fact that the features of some celebrities had,

in some sense, already entered the public domain.52

On this subject, an unpublished exchange of letters sheds

some light on the notions of "original" and "copyright." In

1785, just before his departure for America, Houdon did a por54

trait of the cardinal de Rohan, and on 6 March 1788 the cardinal's treasurer asked him to send the plaster bust to Strasbourg

so that the prelate could examine it and decide whether to have

it executed in marble. In the draft of his response Houdon

replied that he possessed "only a single plaster of the bust of

His Holy Highness Monseigneur Cardinal de Rohan, which

plaster comes from a cast made from day and then broken along

with the mold." He continued:

4- MULTIPLE S -h

For Houdon the creation of a portrait almost always culminated

in the execution of a marble bust. In the vast majority of cases

47

he made only one copy. Exceptions include works that were

replicated because of a flaw in the material (such as the busts

of Cagliostro and Buffon; cats. 14 and 28), likenesses of certain

celebrities produced in multiple versions by the studio (Diderot

To accede to the request made in your letter, I would be

obliged to separate myself entirely from one of my

works, something I never do. In addition to those I

deliver to those who honor me with their trust, I always

keep an exemplar for myself.... The mold always

belongs to the artist, unless different arrangements are

made. When I had the honor three years ago of doing the

22
HOUDON , "ABOV E AL L MODER N ARTISTS "

bust of His Holy Excellency, I was in an extreme rush

because of my trip to America and the desire to display

that bust at the Salon; to accelerate operations, I had it

cast from a waste mold. A waste mold is one with only

two pieces, which must be broken for the plaster to be

removed; the plaster is then unique and serves as a

model equivalent to the clay, which is also lost. I objected

to delivering the bust only out of fear that, should it come

to be broken along the way, I would have to give up any

hope of executing it in marble.

Nevertheless, Houdon was ready to "pay the costs for a second

mold"—that is, to recast from the original model—and provide

the cardinal with several copies. A letter dated 12 May 1788

from Lambre, "attaché" to the cardinal de Rohan, returned to

the notion of who owned the mold: "It seems to me that the

mold belongs to the one who employs the artist's talents, to

reserve for himself the satisfaction of being able to make several plasters, even if there is a desire to have the bust executed

in marble." That was a way of demanding for the patron a kind

of perpetual right: the sculptor provides the master work—the

bust in marble—and also the mold, leaving open the option to

reproduce the object at the patron's complete discretion. This

interesting exchange of letters ended there: Houdon presumably

sent a plaster copy to Strasbourg (now lost or unidentified) and,

with the approach of the Revolution, probably never executed

a marble.

In reading these documents, one observes how closely

Houdon attended to the notion of the ownership of his works.

Moreover, he was the only one among his contemporaries to

create a red wax seal bearing his name and title as member of

the Académie royale and to place it on his sculptures for their

authentication. It is difficult to determine at what date he began

to use this cachet de l'atelier. A number of works were probably

stamped at the time of the two studio sales in 1795 and 1828;

for example, the terracotta of the 1771 Diderot (cat. 19) most

likely received its cachet de l'atelier in the posthumous sale of

1828. But Houdon used it well before that: the plasters purchased by the duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1782 bore the

seal, which, by contrast, is absent from those acquired by the

duke of Saxe-Gotha. A letter from the sculptor, dated 13 February 1776, mentions, already at this date, that the cachet de l'atelier was placed on the small plasters of his ¿"corche depicted with

one arm raised above the head: "The fear and even certainty

that the sculptors in this academy have of seeing their works

spoiled by that mob of counterfeiters, who, without any talent,

occupy themselves here on a daily basis making new castings

of their products, which they then sell dirt cheap... have made

me put off executing this proj ect. " He finally resolved to have

a notice published announcing the sale of the statuette, specifying the existence of a "seal of the Académie [royale] and my

name," and indicating that the work "may not be marketed^any58

where but in the Bibliothèque [du Roi]." It is noteworthy that

Houdon was engaged in this commercial activity before he had

even received full membership in the Académie royale. The

above-mentioned letter from Caffieri to d'Angiviller in 1779

drew attention to the public visibility of his rival's products,

which must therefore have taken on a certain magnitude by

that time.

59

Fraudulent copies and imitations continued to appear after

Houdon's death, especially during the last third of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Three examples suffice to illustrate the problem. The major art collector

François-Hippolyte Walferdin (1795-1880) allowed Gustave

60

Deloye (1838 -1899) to make new casts of his terracotta bust

of Diderot (cat. 19), which were carefully reworked with a tool and

quickly became confused with old versions. In addition, around

1872 the sculptor's great-granddaughter allowed at least two

busts of Mme Houdon (cat. 17) to be cast from the original sculpture. Finally, the newspaper Le Temps indicated on 3 July 1912

that an antiquarian named Fichet had made a cast from a bust

of Michel-Jean Sedaine, executed by Deloye, and had added

Houdon's signature to it.

Houdon's commercial activity was not limited to the

diffusion of his plasters and terracottas. He was involved in

the casting of bronzes, and in that capacity he could have played

a not insignificant role in the development of sand-castings61.

He also had a number of models cast by other specialists. That

practice, followed by other sculpteurs du Roi, such as Pajou

and especially Louis-Simon Boizot, is less well documented in

the Houdon literature. The few objects possibly identified—

a clock sold to the prince de Conde in 1770, a writing case

that Catherine II offered to Prince Orlov, executed in about

1775-1777, and the famous Baiser donné (cat. 41), marketed

64

before 1787 —indicate that such works were created over the

course of the artist's entire career.

•f- HOUDON,"FIRST STATUARY IN THE WORLD" 4-

Houdon prevailed over his colleagues by virtue of the multiplicity of his talents, the originality of his approach to his

23
5- Houdon, detail of the Monument of the Comte

d'Ennery, 1781, marble, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

subjects, his deftness in rendering his sitters' features and in

breathing into them an inimitable touch of authenticity, his

aptitude in marketing and promotion of his work, and the wide

range of his social connections. After the death of Lemoyne in

1778, only Pajou could challenge him in statuary, and Caffieri

in portrait busts. During Louis XVI's reign, however, these

sculptors did not have the same patrons: Pajou had a special

relationship with the administration of the Bâtiments du Roi,

and his activity as a portraitist was secondary and most often

reserved for his friends; Caffieri, a more prolific creator of busts,

intentionally focused on academic and institutional circles.

Houdon could thus appeal to a large audience among private

collectors (many of whom also patronized Clodion, the undisputed master of small terracotta sculpture).

Houdon's aristocratic clients commissioned busts of

themselves, but usually without seeking to acquire other works

by the artist. The duc de Brissac was an exception. When the

sculptor announced he was leaving for America, there was a

sense of urgency among those who wanted to sit for portraits. In

a handwritten note dated 21 June 1785, the duke pressed an invitation on Houdon to come out to the country for a few days,

offering him "three long posing sessions" to clinch the deal.

What is unusual, or at least little known, is that Brissac also

collected sculpted portraits of his contemporaries: he purchased

a plaster of Houdon's Prince Henry of Prussia (see cat. 54) as

well as one plaster and one terracotta bust of the duc de Nivernais (see Mathies essay, fig. 6). The latter two were inventoried

in 1792 in the canopy room of his Paris house. More often

collectors of modern sculpture were found among the financiers.

Art lovers such as Vassal de Saint-Hubert, Bergeret de Grandcourt, Bourgeois de Boynes, and Galonné collected works by both

Clodion and Houdon, without commissioning portraits of

themselves. The banker Girardot de Marigny, a close friend of

Houdon, exhibited bronzes of Diana and Apollo in his garden

(cats. 35 and 37) and had two matching versions of the Baiser

donné in white marble in his home (see cat. 41), along with

marbles of Anne Audéoud (depicting the daughter of a friend,

the Swiss banker Michel Audéoud) and Sabine (depicting

the sculptor's daughter), but did not commission a bust of

himself.74

In Houdon's own lifetime his genius attracted nearly unanimous praise for iconographical inventiveness, a new approach

to classical sources, the exceptional likenesses—both physical

and spiritual—to his subjects. Much has been made, and rightly

so, of the realism of Houdon's portraits and of his general attachment to that which is real. But one must also recognize his

sensibility. As Falconet put it, echoing an idea espoused by

Diderot: "To earn universal approval, the sculptor must combine with the studies necessary to him an even greater talent.

This talent, so essential and so rare, though it appears to be

within reach of all artists, is feeling." Houdon would not have

disavowed this remark. One thinks immediately of the exquisite

sensitivity of his portraits of children, treated with a naturalness that his contemporaries greatly admired: "Finally, artists

no longer disfigure the heads of children by dusting them

with white powder as was once done We no longer see

on children's heads the rolled curls, the bows, the plastering,

that our eyes, entranced by the practice, too long endured....

Childhood has once again assumed the simplicity of that pleasant age." One thinks also of the sorrowful expressions of

Pauline d'Ennery, holding a handkerchief wet with tears, and

also of the comte d'Ennery's widow, with two tears carefully

78

chiseled below her eyes (fig. 5). Houdon did not invent this

79

sentimental detail in sculpture, but his use of it reveals so

well the aesthetic of an age when this display of emotion was

accepted. The sculptor's skill is thus also apparent in his ability to capture the spirit of his time. His art oscillates between

realism and feeling, the portrait of character and the portrait of

condition, unique pieces and works in series. It is this very broad

80

range that makes him an artist "above all modern artists."

24
HOUDON , "ABOV E AL L MODER N ARTISTS "

The title of this essay derives from a report of 1779

to the prince of Stahremberg, quoted in note 80. The

author would like to thank for their help in the preparation of his contribution to this catalogue: Pierre

Arizzoli-Clémentel, Joseph Baillio, Patrice Bellanger,

François Borne, Yves Carlier, Alain Chevalier, Catherine Chevillot, Pascale Danté-Ballasteros, Alain

Dégardin, Céline Delmar, Vincent Droguet, Jean-René

Gaborit, Anne-Sylvie Guenoun, Rita Hofereiter, Pascale Klein, Jonathan Marsden, Valérie Montalbetti,

Magnus Olausson, Claude Pouplard, Hélène Prax,

Tamara Préaud, Nicole Quellet-Soguel, Sophie Quillier,

Jean-Michel Roidot, Georges Vigne, Emmanuel de

Waresquiel, Robert Wenley.

1. Handwritten note by Houdon, sold at auction, cited

in Montaiglon and Duplessis 1855,420.

2. His hope was renewed when it was proposed, at

the initiative of the Society of the Cincinnati, that he

do a bronze equestrian statue of Washington for a

public square in New York (letter of John Trumbull

to Houdon, 20 June 1805: BMV, F 946, no. 79).

3. Henri Stein, "Les Projets d'érection d'une statue

de Louis XVI à Brest," Annales de Bretagne (Jan. 1908),

18-20, and 22-24, which mentions Houdon's

model as described in a letter from the artist dated

25 Nov. 1786.

4. Florence Ingersoll-Smouse, "Lettres inédites

de J.- J. Cafneri," BSHAF(i^), 202-222.

5. Jacques Silvestre de Sacy, Le Comte d'Angiviller,

dernier directeur general des Bâtiments du Roi (Paris,

1953)' 163-164.

6. On d'Angiviller's commission, see Scherf 1993

and references therein; on the renewed interest

in illustrious men in the eighteenth century,

see Jean-Claude Bonnet, Naissance du Panthéon.

Essai sur le culte des grands hommes (Paris, 1998).

7. He also created the marble portraits of the maréchal

de Turenne (Salon of 1783) and of Pascal (Salon of

1785). On Pajou and the "Great Men of France" project,

see Paris and New York 1997-1998, 299-329.

8. See Paris 1992, 277-289.

9. Mémoires secrets, letter 3, Salon de 1779 (Fort 1999,

215). See also Dingé, Notice sur M. Clodion (Paris, n.d.

[1814]): "II y a tout lieu de croire que des rivaux jaloux

avaient exagéré les défauts de cette figure pour écarter

Clodion, et dégoûter le gouvernement de l'associer

à leurs travaux."

10. M. des Labbes, Le Miracle de nos jours, conversation

écrite et recueillie par un sourd et muet... non seulement

la critique des ouvrages exposés au Salon [de 1779], mais

la critique de nos peintres et sculpteurs les plus connus

(Deloynes XI, no. 219; MacWilliam 1991, 303).

11. Furcy-Raynaud 1905, 45. Houdon was made

an officer only in 1792, when he became an assistant

professor. He was named professor at the Ecole

spéciale de peinture et sculpture in 1805.

12. Réau 1964,1:236.

13. Except for the Salon of 1791, which was open to

all artists, where Houdon exhibited his bronze of

La Frileuse (cat. 39).

14. Pierre to d'Angiviller, 9 Aug. 1785 (Furcy-Raynaud

1906,126).

15. La Critique est aisée, mais l'art est difficile, review of

the Salon of 1783 (Deloynes XIII, no. 287; MacWilliam

1991,351).

16. Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret, Mirabeau (Paris, 1982),

70: "The violent reaction that made the nineteenth

century a sexual wilderness and a major time of

repression was begun under Louis XVI."

17. The anatomical naturalism of the bronze Diana

now in the Louvre was judged inappropriate when

it was acquired in 1829, and the slit of the vulva was

filled in with a series of rods hammered near the

surface (see Scherf 2000, fig. 37). Dupont de Nemours

was unable to sell a plaster miniature of the Diana

in the U.S., "ayant paru trop nue" (letter to Houdon,

[29 April 1800], BMV, F 946, no. 34).

18. Louis-Sébastien Mercier, Tableau de Paris [1789],

éd. Jean-Claude Bonnet (Paris, 1994), 2:1160.

19. Paris and New York 1997-1998,333-341.

Although the plaster is lost, the marble, dated 1790,

is at the Louvre.

20. Guiffrey 1877, 286.

21. Anonymous letter [from Cafneri] to d'Angiviller,

winter 1779 (Guiffrey 1877, 288-289). Caffieri's

jealousy toward Houdon is well known (see also

cats, ii and 43).

22. See von Halem (ed. 1990), 188.

23. Significantly, Antonio Canova admired the Saint

Bruno (letter from Rome to Houdon's daughter,

Anne-Ange de Villermay, dated 22 Oct. 1820, BMV,

F 946, no. 63).

24. Gaborit 1985, 70-74.

25. Diderot (ed. i995b), 448 (Pensées détachées sur

la peinture).

26. Mercier 1994 (1783), 1:1233-1234.

27. La Font de Saint-Yenne, Oeuvre critique [1754],

ed. Etienne Jollet (Paris, 2001), 319.

28. Sans quartier au Sallon...de 178} (Deloynes XIII,

no. 296); and Observations [on thé Salon of 1785]

(both in MacWilliam 1991, 369, 390).

29. Letter from Houdon to president of National

Assembly, 17 June 1790, offering busts of Franklin

and Washington (AN, O2 488); just the reference was

cited by Gaston Brière in BSHAF (1907), 19: "j'ai cru

qu'il me serait permis de m'enorgueillir de ces

ouvrages dont l'unique mérite est la ressemblance."

30. In his mémoire to Bachelier in 1794 Houdon said

the study of anatomy had filled his "entire life."

31. BMV, F 946, no. 76.

32. The plaster mask of Boissy d'Anglas was part of

Houdon's posthumous sale in 1828, under no. 46,

with the remark: "ce masque a été moulé pendant

la vie de ce personnage." The bust (now lost) was

exhibited at the Salon of 1812.

33. Pliny, Historia naturalis, 35.

34. Boilly immortalized Houdon in his studio in 1804

modeling the face of Pierre-Simon Laplace in front

of his whole family (cat. 66, fig. i). After being commissioned by members of the stock exchange to sculpt

a bust of Louis XVI, Houdon had to wait three years

before he was allowed to see the king, a preliminary

he judged indispensable (see cat. 50).

35. D'Angiviller papers; quoted in Silvestre de Sacy

1953' H5-

36. Journal de Gouverneur Morris (1789-1792),

ministre plénipotentiaire des Etats-Unis en France, ed.

with notes by Antoine de Baecque (Paris, 2002), 69.

37. Frédéric-Melchior Grimm, May 1778, on

Molière (cat. n); see Con. littéraire 12:104.

38. Comte de Caylus, Recueil d'antiquités égyptiennes,

étrusques, grecques et romaines (Paris, 1752), 1:155.

39. Charles-Joseph Mathon de la Cour, commenting

on a bust of Louis XV by Lemoyne at the Salon of

1763. See Lettres à Madame... sur les peintures, les

sculptures... exposées dans le Salon du Louvre en 1763

(MacWilliam 1991,153).

40. A difference can be noted depending on the material: Lemoyne and Caffieri sometimes carved the eyes

on terracotta busts more deeply than those on marbles.

41. See Paris and New York 1997-1998, 277 and 271.

42. Pajou did the same for his bust of the engraver

Basan of 1768; see Paris and New York 1997-1998, 235.

43. La Béquille de Voltaire au Salon [0/1791] (Deloynes

XVII, nos. 438-439); and Observations de Mr Vilette sur

l'exposition des tableaux au Salon du Louvre [de] 1791

(Deloynes L, no. 1363) (MacWilliam 1991,473,499).

44. Sauerlânder 2002, 60.

45. Mémoires de la princesse Daschkojf, dame d'honneur

de Catherine II impératrice de toutes les Russies, ed.

Pascal Pontremoli (Paris, 1989), 138.

25
46. Diderot (éd. 1996), 1177 ("Entretiens sur le fils

naturel"): "Ce ne sont plus, à proprement parler,

les caractères qu'il faut mettre sur la scène, mais

les conditions."

47. This does not refer to different versions of the

same subject ("à l'antique," "à la française," with

drapery, in uniform, and so on).

48. François Souchal, "Situation de la sculpture

en France en 1778," Dix-Huitième siècle, no. n

(Paris, 1979), 125.

49. For Sophie Arnould, Houdon provided for as

many as thirty to fifty plaster copies in addition to

the primary marble bust; Jones ordered at least eight

plasters of his bust; Houdon received payment for

one marble, one terracotta, and four plasters of

Guibert (see Réau 1964,1:124).

50. Letter from Houdon to Rodolphe-Ferdinand Grand,

20 Germinal an XII [9 Apr. 1804] (BMV, F 946, no. 81).

The next day Grand put off the manufacture of the busts.

51. Claparède (ed. 1993), 41. At issue were the Ecorché

and busts of Molière, Voltaire, and Rousseau (cats. 2,

n, 23, and 26).

52. In 1780 Houdon sent five plasters of his bust of

Diderot to the municipal councillors of Langres (see

cat. 21), and in 1779 he gave a plaster of his bust of

Voltaire to every member of the Académie française

(BMV, F 946, no. ii).

53. BMV, F 946, nos. 114-118 (original letters from

the cardinal de Rohan's entourage, drafts of Houdon's

replies: documents preserved by the sculptor's descendants): Houdon said he possessed "qu'un seul plâtre

du buste de S.A.S. Mgr le Cardinal de Rohan, lequel

plâtre provient du moule fait sur la terre et que l'on

brise, ainsi que le creux — Ainsi d'après le contenu de

votre lettre je serez obligé de me détacher entièrement

d'un de mes ouvrages, chose que je ne fais jamais.

Outre ceux que je livre à ceux qui m'honorent de leur

confiance, j'en garde toujours un exemplaire pour

moy.... Le moule appartient toujours à l'artiste, à

moins qu'on ne prène des arrangemens differens.

Lorsque j'eus l'honeur il y a trois ans de faire le buste

de S.E.S., j'étais extrement pressé par mon voyage en

Amérique et le désir de placer ce buste au Salon ; pour

accélérer les opérations, je le fis mouler à creux perdu.

On apelle creux perdu un moule de deux seules pièces

qu'on est obligé de casser pour retirer le plâtre qui

alors est unique, qui fait modèle et qui équivaut à la

terre qui se trouve aussi perdu ;'je n'ay fait d'objections

pour livrer le buste que dans la crainte que venant à se

casser en route, il fallait renoncer à l'espoir de l'exécuter en marbre."

The letter from Lambre, dated 12 May 1788, continued in a different direction: "II me semble que le

moule appartient à celui qui emploie les talents de

l'artiste, afin de se réserver la satisfaction de pouvoir

donner plusieurs plâtres, même si on a la volonté

de faire exécuter le buste en marbre."

54. There is no mention of the existence of this portrait

in the Houdon literature.

55. The price of each plaster copy was 4 louis, that of

the original model, 30 louis, "comme à l'ordinaire."

56. See BMV, F 946, no. 229. The draft, carefully

copied out, names no addressee but was intended for

the lieutenant general of the police, as another document indicates (F 946, no. 231 bis). That letter followed

a complaint by Houdon, 8 Feb. 1776, begging Commissioner Crespy in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine

"de lui prêter le secours de son autorité pour contenir

les mouleurs dont il craint les contrefaçons" (F 946,

no. 228).

57. This activity, as Houdon notes, flouted the decree

of the Conseil du Roi made on 21 June 1676, protecting

the works of sculptors of the Académie royale from

casters and counterfeiters. See Katie Scott, "Authorship, the Académie, and the Market in Early Modern

France," Oxford Art Journal 21, no. i (1998), 40, app. II.

58. That is, by his studio at the Bibliothèque du Roi on

the rue de Richelieu.

59. Houdon returned to this problem in his mémoire

to Bachelier of 1794 (Réau 1964,1:99): "In spite of the

laws, under the ancien régime, some have constantly

recast my works, some have disfigured them by putting my name on them, while others, even less honest,

have simply copied [my works] and placed their own

name on them, so that now, defying the explicit

decrees of the Convention in support of the arts and

property rights, they continue to sell them, to exhibit

them, to promenade them in public, and thus to

frustrate my labor."

60. Gustave Deloye was the venerated teacher of

Georges Giacometti, a master sculptor who also wrote

the first illustrated monograph in French on Houdon.

61. See Giacometti 1929,1:136; Gaborit 1975, 244 n.

23. The bust of Rousseau at the Louvre (inv. LP 1729),

acquired in 1838, from the revolutionary Bertrand

Barère de Vieuzac, is a sand-cast bronze (Louvre cat.

1998, 2:421).

62. See Pierre Verlet, Les Bronzes dorés français du

XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1987), 35, ill. There are several

known versions (château de Fontainebleau, residence

of the president of the National Assembly at the

Hôtel de Lassay).

63. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; see

Catherine the Great and Gustave III [exh. cat., Nationalmuseum] (Stockholm, 1998-1999), 547, no. 549. The

Wallace Collection in London owns a version that

shows groups of children hoisting a cannon; see Peter

Hughes, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Furniture

(London, 1996), 3:1228-1232, ill. For this author, the

attribution of the models to Houdon is doubtful.

64. Collection of the miniature painter François

Alexandre Plantier, sold to Le Brun 16 Feb. 1787: "le

baiser d'après Houdon —doré d'or mat orné de socle

de porphire" (AN, Min. Cent., étude 13:445; the author

wishes to thank Vincent Droguet for this information).

65. Letter of Thomas Jefferson to George Washington,

from Paris, 10 Dec. 1784, in Chinard 1930, 5: "I find

that a Monsieur Houdon, of this place, possesses the

reputation of being the first statuary in the world."

66. The old sculptor, whose friendliness and openness

to others were always hailed by contemporaries, ended

his career as director of the Académie royale.

67. Pigalle died in 1785, but he had declined in

influence since the Nude Voltaire scandal of 1770-1776.

68. BMV, F 946, no. 127. The model is mentioned in

the accounts of the duc de Brissac, n July 1785: "Fait

prix avec lui a 2400 l[ivres] pour le buste en marbre

de Mgr dont il a vu le modèle qui est très ressemblant"

(AN, T* 564 ; the author wishes to thank Yves Carlier

for providing this reference). It was delivered 23 Oct.

1788, but the marble was probably never executed,

as its creation had been put off because Brissac was

wavering between marble and bronze (BMV, F 946,

nos. 120-122).

69. See Scherf 2001, 158-160.

70. Accounts of the duc de Brissac, n July 1785

(AN, T* 584 ). The plaster painted a terracotta color

is mentioned as having been delivered 23 Oct. 1788

(BMV, F 946, no. 121).

71. AN, Min. Cent., étude XCI:i295, 28 Dec. 1792.

The author thanks Yves Carlier for this reference.

72. Girardot de Marigny's posthumous inventory,

23 Germinal an IV [12 Apr. 1796] (AN, Min. Cent.,

étude L:8o2, fols. 5 and 62).

73. See Salon cat. 1781; and the withdrawn catalogue

for the Salon of 1791, which also listed a plaster of

Franklin as having been "executed for M. Girardot"

(Scherf 1997,57).

74. Unlike other Genevans such as Necker, Tronchin,

Mme de Thelluson, and Mme Girardot de Vermenoux.

75. Sauerlánder 2002.

76. Etienne-Maurice Falconet, Reflexions sur la sculpture

(1761; ed. Paris, 1808), 3:25.

77. Mercier 1994 (1783), 1:1097-1098.

78. Separated from her husband, the vicomte Chauvigny de Blot, Pauline d'Ennery was the mistress of the

maréchal de Castries, minister of the navy under Louis

XVI. According to Besenval (ed. 1987), 84, her sensitive and romantic spirit had been awakened by reading

Samuel Richardson's Clarissa. She was portrayed by

Houdon on the funerary monument for her brother,

the comte d'Ennery (Louvre cat. 1998, 429).

26
HOUDON , "ABOV E AL L MODER N ARTISTS "

79. Antoine Coysevox and François Collignon had

depicted the marquise de Vaubrun with a tear flowing

down her face on the mausoleum for her husband in

the chapel of the château de Serrant (1677-1678).

80. A report of the advisor de Lippens to the prince

of Stahremberg, Austrian plenipotentiary minister in

Brussels, 21 Sept. 1779, noted: "[II] s'est dès longtemps

acquis une célébrité qui le met au-dessus de tous

les artistes modernes et la plupart des gens instruits

à Paris le préfèrent à Pigal" (quoted in Louis Réau,

"Houdon et la Belgique," Apollo, no. 22 [1943], 16).

27

ETAT DES CHOSES:

A RECENTLY DISCOVERE D DOCUMENT BY HOUDON

Anne L Poulet with Ulrike D. Mathies and Christoph Frank

ean-Antoine Houdon first came into contact with the small German court of Saxe-Gotha

in the late summer of 1771 when Frédéric-Melchior Grimm (1723-1807), the court's advisor, who had lived in Paris for more than twenty years, proposed that Houdon take over

the commission for a funerary monument to the late duchess, Louise Dorothea.1 The young

sculptor, who had returned from four years of study at the Académie de France in Rome at the

end of 1768 and had become an agréé at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in Paris

during the summer of 1769, traveled to Gotha and stayed at Schloss Friedenstein from 25 October to 3 December 1771, bringing with him a terracotta model for the proposed funerary monument. While there, Houdon won the admiration and confidence of the members of the court,

especially that of the hereditary prince, Ernst Ludwig, who would succeed his father as Duke

Ernst II in March 1772.2

The young duke, strongly influenced by his highly cultivated late mother and key figures of

the Paris Enlightenment, set out to put Gotha on the map as a cultural and intellectual center in

Germany. By 1771 he must have already intended to establish an art academy at his court, an integral part of which would be a collection of plaster casts of antique and modern sculptures as well

as other works of art that could serve as models for the students. Although this project was not

fully implemented until I786,3 Ernst's acquisitions in the first years of his reign reveal his early

aspirations. In addition, he sent his protégé, the young German sculptor Friedrich Wilhelm Doell

(1750-1816), who had been referred to the court by Grimm, to Paris with Houdon to be trained

in his studio and learn anatomy at the Académie royale.

Ernst II enlisted Houdon's help in assembling an appropriate study collection and thus, as

an unintended consequence, created what is still today the largest group of works by Houdon in

Germany.4 It was heretofore unknown when and how Houdon's sculptures found their way

to Gotha, but a recently discovered letter by Houdon to the young duke, published here for the first

Detail of the Ecorché, cat. i

29

J
i. Title page ofHoudoris letter to Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha,

Forschungs- und Landesbibliothek Gotha, Chart A 712, fol 8r.

time (see the Appendix to this catalogue), answers these questions and provides valuable new information. The undated, thirteen-page manuscript, which survives in the library of Schloss

Friedenstein (fig. i), bound with other papers from the duke's

estate, discusses some of the sculptor's most important compositions as well as previously unknown pieces; sheds light on

his working methods; and gives a deeper insight into Houdon

as a person, teacher, and artist. It was enclosed in a letter Grimm

wrote to Ernst II on 20 July 1772 with the intention that it precede the arrival of several crates with works of art that Houdon

had shipped from Paris.

Although Houdon had only recently completed his training, the tone of his letter to Ernst II is didactic and avuncular.

It makes clear that he had already formed strong convictions

about teaching models and aesthetics (from which he did not

waver for the rest of his life). It is also evident that the young

sculptor had won the full confidence of the duke, who entrusted

him not only with forming a collection for his nascent art

academy but also with its crating and shipping. Leaving nothing to chance, Houdon sent instructions for the unpacking,

assembling, identifying, and even repairing of the works of art.

The shipment contained examples of Houdon's own works in

plaster as well as plaster casts after the antique, prints, drawings, and a group of medals and medal proofs by the Duviviers,

father and son. The selection was made with an eye to economy. In the letter itself Houdon discusses the usefulness of

sculpture for teaching purposes, and he is preoccupied by

technical issues such as mold making, the quality and type of

materials to be used, the proper assembling of plaster casts,

and appropriate finishes and fixatives. He also addresses the

issue of how art should be exhibited and the importance of

lighting, framing, and placement.

•h CRATE S AND CONTENT S *

In all, Houdon packed three crates, carefully filling any empty

spaces and cavities with additional objects, all of which were

protected by sawdust. The first and largest crate contained as a

centerpiece the life-size figure of the Morpheus and included,

among other works, the Priest of the Lupercalia, the Standing

Vestal, and the Baiser donné as well as two frames containing

medal proofs. The middle-sized crate held the statue of the

Ecorché, under the head of which could be found a smaller box

with a Flayed Horse in addition to the figure of the Saint Bruno

and busts of the Vestal, Saint John the Baptist, and the Peasant

Girl ofFrascati. The smallest box, measuring only three feet,

enclosed other selections, such as two wooden frames for medallions, the pastels, prints, and drawings, and a piece of wood

to attach the right arm to the body of the Ecorché. Aiming for

clarity and structure, Houdon had established "an intelligible

and brief system to recognize each object on the spot by using

numbers placed on each object and located in the same way on

each of the articles. But seeing that most of them fell off in the

process of placing the objects in the crate" (Appendix, lines i5), he did not continue. In general, Houdon's explanations in the

letter adhere to the sequence in which he packed the crates; but

they are interwoven with opinionated digressions, resulting in

a rather confusing text. Immediately following the present essay

is a summary of the objects shipped, listed in thematic and

chronological order, with references to the letter and to Gotha

inventories, where applicable.

3°

6
ETAT DES CHOSES: A RECENTL Y DISCOVERE D DOCUMEN T BY HOUDO N

Houdon considered fundamental for Ernst IFs planned art

academy a number of his own works, which represented a wide

range in style, from copies after the antique to têtes d'étude,

anatomical studies, and religious works. Particular importance

was given to his life-size plaster cast of an Ecorché. The model

sent to Gotha, inscribed "Rome 1767," is the same one that

Houdon had executed in Rome as a study for the figure of Saint

John the Baptist and had sold to the Académie de France there

in 1767 (cat. i). Houdon explains to the duke that he "had done

this work to teach artists, which is the reason for the idealization of the composition" (lines 62-63). Eventually the sculptor was to give or sell casts of his Ecorché to art academies and

schools all over Europe and America.

Included in the shipment was a selection of works that

Houdon had done in Rome and then exhibited in Paris at the

Salon of 1769, immediately following his return from Italy.

Among them was a beautiful plaster Head of Saint John the

Baptist (see cat. 3, Related Works), done, like the Ecorché, as a

preparatory study for the statue of Saint John, which had been

commissioned for the Carthusian church in Rome in 1766. In

one of the most revealing passages of Houdon's letter, he

describes how he saw a man at Saint Peter's in Rome who

was a kind of spiritual hermit living among the people, who

begged for alms and gave to charity all that he did not need to

live himself. Finding his head to be the perfect model for Saint

John, Houdon asked the hermit to model for him: "He said

to me that he was not worthy of serving as a model for a saint"

(lines 350-351). Houdon then went back to the church several times without being observed: "I studied him carefully

and stored it in my head as well as I possibly could. I returned

to the academy, which is quite a long distance from St. Peter's,

and I modeled a mass of clay already prepared for this purpose" (lines 352-355). In this early document Houdon thus

emphasizes the importance of selecting from nature and

observing the model first-hand, which, when necessary, can

be executed later from memory. This technique would serve

Houdon well as a portrait sculptor.

Houdon also sent a reduced version of the statue of Saint

Bruno (cat. 4) that he had carved in marble for the church of

Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome in 1766-1767 as a pendant

to his Saint John the Baptist. He states specifically that he is sending "the Saint Bruno that was exhibited at the Salon three years

ago" (lines 316-317). In another crate he packed "The little head

of St. Bruno, founder of the order of the Carthusians. It is a

bust, and less incorrect than the one that is on the saint. That

2. Houdon, Head of

Saint Bruno, 1776 or

after, plaster, Musée

des Beaux-Arts, Dijon.

is why I included it" (lines 448-450). There is no trace of this

little bust in the collections at Gotha, but from its description,

it must have resembled the delicately modeled small Head of

Saint Bruno at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (fig. 2).

As an example of his early experiments with an animated

baroque style, Houdon sent a reduced version of the Priest of the

Lupercalia (cat. 5), pointing out to Ernst II the priest's unusual

role as an agent of the Roman god Pan in bestowing the gift of

fecundity to women by striking them with leather straps and

the fact that the plaster he was sending to Gotha had been both

in the Salon of 1769 and submitted for his preliminary admission to the Académie royale in Paris (lines 94-101). To illustrate yet another aspect of his early work Houdon included a

head called the Peasant Girl ofFrascati (cat. 6), an idealized study

of a woman with her hair dressed in a local Italian style that

Houdon admired for its simplicity and enhancement of the

natural human form: "This head, and that of my Ecorché have

ears as one should have them in general" (lines 412-414). He

also sent "the head of a Cupid Crowned with Myrtle, composed

by me" (lines 302-303), which is probably identical with one of

the two "Heads of Young Men; one, crowned with myrtle.... Free

standing and life-size," shown at the Salon of 1771. These heads

may be recorded in two marbles now in private collections in

New York and Los Angeles (see fig. 3).

Sending a Vestal (fig. 4) copied after the antique, Houdon

wrote to Ernst II questioning its iconography and function: "The

3i
3- Houdon, Roman Youth, 1775, marble, Collection of Stewart and Lynda

Resnick, Los Angeles.

name Pandora that one gave in Rome to the Vestal I did after

the marble that is in the Capitoline [Museum] and larger than

life doesn't seem to me to be appropriate, seeing that the vase

that she holds does not resemble Pandora's box. I do not know

the purpose served by the hole that is in the bottom of the

vase—maybe it is modern. She is 20 to 22 inches high, stands

straight, she holds the vase with both hands" (lines 295-301).

Lost during World War II, this sculpture is known only through

a photograph. As with other early figures, such as the Saint

Bruno and Saint John the Baptist, Houdon had executed while

in Rome the head of a veiled Vestal (see cat. 6, fig. 2), and he

included this in the shipment to Gotha. Adding that "she is in

my studio, sketched in marble, as is [the head of Saint John]"

(lines 332-334), Houdon indicates that he waited for a specific

commission before carrying out a sculpture in marble, doubtless owing to the cost of the material. The same was true of a

"medallion... representing the Head of Minerva (fig. 5), copied

after the antique, corrected by me, [and] the head of Alexander composed by me as a pendant to that of Minerva.... I do

not plan to finish them until the opportunity to find a home for

them presents itself" (lines 102-107).

In a burst of generosity, along with technical and artistic

pride, Houdon wrote, "Since your highness values masterpieces

of all types, I am sending you, without it being repaired, the

Morpheus that was exhibited at the last Salon, which can serve

as a model for all mold makers. I am sending it as is to your

highness so that you can judge for yourself: the delicacy of the

seams..., of the minimum of defects there are to repair. It

is rare to see a mold so well made" (lines 6-12). The life-size

plaster Morpheus (see cat. 7, fig. i), which is still in Gotha, was

the model for Houdon's morceau de réception at the Académie

royale and was shown in the Salon of 1771; it is the only lifesize version known.

Unusual among his own works in the shipment was

"The Couple of Lovers or reciprocal kiss, it is a group with

two heads, half life size" (lines 304-305). Undoubtedly

inspired by the marble group of Cupid and Psyche in the

Capitoline Museum in Rome (see cat. 41, fig. 2), this group

is nevertheless innovative in that the two heads rest on one

base, an aspect that Houdon emphasizes in his letter (lines

305-307). As with his other sculptures, he takes particular

pride in the iconographie and technical originality of this

group. The fact that it is an especially decorative work and

charged with erotic expression goes unmentioned.

Some of the sculptures by Houdon's own hand that were

sent to Gotha remain unidentified. Among them is a "Head of

Medusa" in relief taken from that on the breastplate of a bust

4. Houdon, Vestal,

by 1769, plaster, formerly Schlossmuseum

Gotha; whereabouts

unknown.

32
ETAT DES CHOSES: A RECENTL Y DISCOVERE D DOCUMEN T BY HOUDO N

5. Houdon, Head of Minerva, probably by 1771, plaster, formerly Schlossmuseum Gotha; whereabouts unknown.

of Hadrian in the Capitoline Museum (fig. 6), a further indication of the importance of that collection of ancient sculpture

for Houdon's years of study in Rome. Another work that has

since disappeared from the collection at Gotha was a sculpture

of two little birds. In a touching personal passage Houdon

writes, "A little crate about 6 inches long containing two little

birds in terracotta that I want to give to Madame the Duchess.

I found in doing them that it is difficult with an opaque material of one single color, to render the lightness of the feathers and

the down, that nature presents to us. I hope that your Highness

will find some truths there" (lines 397-403). While acknowledging the difficulty of modeling the delicate texture of a bird's

feathers, he is also proud of his success in doing so.

Following the example of other art academies, Houdon sent

a number of plaster casts after the antique for Ernst II 's collection, carefully describing each of them while emphasizing how

reasonably they were priced. He included busts of Homer,

Demosthenes, and Caracalla (see cat. 13, fig. i). Concerning the

latter, he writes, "it is easy to recognize him with his knitted

brows, his short curly hair, his frizzy beard, and his Roman

cloak, held by a button on the right shoulder. The head of this

emperor was badly organized, but the exterior design pleases me

especially" (lines 122-126). Of particular interest in this group

is the anatomical study of a flayed horse, "of which the original

is in bronze and is twice the size, in the villa of the Duke Mattei. If it is not antique, it is old, in my opinion, and very beautiful" (lines 80-83). Already in the summer of 1772 Houdon

was dreaming of creating an equestrian statue. In March of that

year he had moved into the du Roule foundry, where the great

equestrian monuments by Jean-Baptiste II Lemoyne, Edme

o

Bouchardon, and Jean-Baptiste Pigalle had been cast.

Along with the copies after the antique, Houdon included

bas-reliefs of antique subjects by his student Doell, a series of

unattributed reliefs representing the Four Parts of the World, and

a bas-relief of Louis XIV as Apollo after a model by Balin, the

famous goldsmith to the king. Knowing of Ernst II's interest

in the casting of commemorative medals, Houdon included a

number of proofs of the works of the great French medalists

Jean Duvivier (1687-1761) and his son Pierre-Simon-Benjamin

Duvivier (1730-1819), writing, "Another small crate, which

should be in the largest one, containing the medals that I

received from Mr. Duvivier.... my intention in including this,

is to give an idea of what is done in Paris of this type and to

make known the merit of the author" (lines 455-460).

The emphasis throughout the shipment was on sculpture,

after or inspired by the antique, with only a scattering of later

works or works on paper. The prints and pastels that were

shipped were chosen more for their illustration of contemporary fashion or demonstration of techniques of preservation,

such as fixatives, than for their intrinsic quality.

-Î- M ETHODS , TH EOR I ES, AN D PERSONALIT Y 4-

Houdon's letter to Duke Ernst II provides a rich variety of insights

into his working methods and his knowledge of the techniques

of casting, assembling, coloring, and finishing sculptures in

plaster. Throughout the document the young sculptor, who had

6. Roman, Emperor

Hadrian, 2nd century

AD, marble, Capitoline

Museum, Rome.

33
just turned thirty-one, writes with remarkable confidence and

maturity concerning the quality of his work, his aesthetic theories, and his beliefs about teaching younger artists. In a

digression that is both charming and candid, Houdon airs his

personal opinions about contemporary dress and fashion.

Drawing on the text of the letter, these aspects of Houdon's

methods and thought are discussed below.

Working Methods and Materials

Houdon, while very pleased with his safe and clever packing

of the crates, is equally concerned with the proper unpacking

of the objects to avoid any breakage. Regarding the largest

crate, which he had filled from both top and bottom to take

advantage of the extra space available inside the open cavity of

the Morpheus, he warns: "In order to avoid breakage I think it

would be best to open the crate from the top; then remove the

sawdust that is at the level of the first plank for fear of hitting

the parts that will be here and there at hand. Then saw that

plank at its two extremities as far as the next layer, and take out

the objects which will probably reveal themselves" (lines 42 -

48). He meticulously explains how to assemble the full-length

figure of the Ecorché, the arm of which, traveling in a different

crate, had to be attached and held in place by an eight-inch

long piece of wood, also enclosed. In case of minor damage,

he encourages that the repair be undertaken without the help

of a professional sculptor: "it will suffice to apply a little lead

white [prepared for painting] such as one finds at a color merchant's [shop], to grind it with a little fatty oil, and apply some

on all of the parts to be rejoined. It is necessary to pay attention, in view of the fact that it takes a little time to harden, and

support the pieces that would project in the air" (lines 36-

42). He recommends the same self-reliance in fitting a medallion of the duchess he had executed when in Gotha to the

frame he was sending: "I had taken the measurements of the

medallion of Madame La Duchesse in order to make [a frame]

better suited to it than the one I left behind without being

finished, but I lost it on the way. If the border I am sending

should not fit properly, one could remove or add plaster to the

portrait so that when they are reunited they seem made one

for the other. These borders, in view of my economy, only cost

me [170 livres, 2 sous]" (lines 241-248).

Throughout his text Houdon gives highly valuable information on the material and finish of his works, answering

questions later posed by art historians and conservators alike

and revealing his taste for neoclassical simplicity. For the

Morpheus, the Head of Minerva, and Doell's reliefs he used the

finest type of plaster, made of talcum powder, while the Head

of Venus [lost], a copy requested by the duchess, is cited for its

unusual degree of whiteness. In emphasizing that the little

Head of Saint Bruno was painted a water-based terracotta color—

with a little bit of gum arabic added—Houdon implies that the

other works in his shipment remained unpainted. He explicitly states: "Most of my works are not varnished. That is because

I do not think it appropriate to varnish something that is not

absolutely perfect. I said to M. Doëll that to make these images

shiny was to hide underneath [a coat of] varnish its defects in

the eyes of those people who are not connoisseurs. In addition,

flesh, as well as many other things, is not smooth, polished,

and shiny. When that happens, it is because a greasy sweat

spreads oil over the face, which is not attractive" (lines 374 -

9

383). As for his skills as a mold maker, Houdon proudly presents the Morpheus, which was cast from a piece mold consisting

of about two hundred parts enclosed by eleven mother molds.

He draws attention to the balanced number and sensible placement of the mold pieces, the subtlety of the mold marks, and

the absence of repairs—all of them intentionally visible, as the

surface of the work had not been cleaned and finished.

Even more didactic, although of somewhat confusing outcome, are Houdon's explanations of half, low, and very low

reliefs and the importance of hanging these works appropriately to create the desired effect: "It is necessary with very little

relief, to give the impression that the object represented is in the

round, and to convince oneself of this, it is necessary (if the

light be natural or artificial) to place the work a little higher or

lower, more or less to the side, as I had the honor of demonstrating to his Highness, in regard to the portraits that I had the

advantage of doing in Gotha. It is necessary, at the same time,

to place oneself at an appropriate distance" (lines 250-257).

Similarly, Houdon judges the impact of correct lighting: "The

sculpture that is well lit is quite different from one that is not.

The famous Apollo in the Vatican, does not strike me when lit

from below; I see it as a statue. But lit differently, I forget the

material from which it is made, and only see in him a god"

(lines 257-262).

Aesthetic Theory

Reflecting his familiarity with neoclassical art theories that he

learned in Rome and at the Académie royale in Paris, Houdon

expresses his personal view that achieving greatness in art

results from the careful observation of nature, from which the

34
ETA T DES CHOSES ! A RECENTL Y DISCOVERE D DOCUMEN T B Y HOUDO N

artist must skillfully select and blend what is most perfect and

beautiful. In discussing the Ecorché, Houdon summarizes his

theory of great art, one to which he adhered for the rest of his

life: "In my view the skilled surgeon must study after nature, as

defective as one might find it to be, in order to treat every

infirmity. But we [artists] must study it differently. It is nature

in all her nobility, her perfect state of health, that we are looking for, or if not, we are nothing but wretched imitators. He

who imitates nature as she is found on a daily basis I compare

to a well-organized monkey. But he who knows how to be selective, and who succeeds in doing it, approaches, in my view, what

is most perfect, and raises up his soul. That is my ambition and

to what I aspire" (lines 68-78). Through the copies after the

antique that he sends to Ernst II as well as his own sculptures,

Houdon makes clear that the standard by which one measures

perfection in nature is to be found in antiquity.

Even at this early date Houdon manifests his interest in

doing an equestrian statue, believing it to be the most significant

work that a sculptor can create. He tells the duke, "Since I now

occupy the studios of the city, and there is still to be found there

the mold for the Statue of Louis XV, I am going to, depending

on how much it will cost, have cast by order of the Prévost des

Marchands a plaster of that statue before the mold is destroyed.

This piece will greatly enhance the decoration of the interior of

my studio" (lines 88-93). Sending Ernst II the half-size copy

of the Flayed Horse from the Villa Mattei in Rome, he comments,

"But if I had to create an equestrian statue, I would want to

know this animal as deeply as I flatter myself to think I know

man" (lines 85-87).

Houdon as a Teacher

From the time Houdon was a student, he had a strong sense of

his role as a teacher. Before leaving Rome, he sold a plaster cast

of his Ecorché to the Académie de France to serve as a model

for students. He was to do the same for the Académie royale in

Paris in 1769. He believed in hard work and discipline with a

concentration on the study of anatomy, on sculpting from the

live model, and on making copies after the antique. A thorough

knowledge of materials, tools, and finishes was essential (see

above). His approach is made clear when he writes to Ernst II

about the young German sculptor who was sent from Gotha to

Paris to study with Houdon:

The copies by M. Doëll, sent to your Highness, will

demonstrate the progress made by your student and

what use he makes of his time. It is not possible to

progress more [quickly]; I beg your Highness not to tell

him all of the good things that I say about him and what

I hope from him; for young people think that they know

everything the instant they begin. It is to be wished that

your Highness demand from him as a proof of his ability that he win a medal in the Competition [Concours].

He wants to do this; I have even found him working on

it. I made him withdraw his figure, and said to him that

it wasn't good enough, that it was important not to tire

the eyes of the judges, that that would not result in a

good opinion of him, that it was necessary to hone one's

skills and to make careful preparations before entering

the lists, and to prevail over the others. I do not ask of

him any more than I did myself, without wanting to give

myself as an example. Afterward, he will do more. I am

not the first who will have trained someone more gifted

than himself [lines 274-290].

Houdon is generous with his praise and with his knowledge.

Throughout, he shows a preoccupation with the opinion of the

critics and the public, aiming for the highest honors for himself and for his student. He also manifests absolute confidence

in the fact that his own works set the highest possible standard

and are worthy models for any ambitious student to follow.

Assessment of Contemporary Fashion

In a vivid series of personal observations, Houdon criticizes the

extremes of artificiality in contemporary French fashion, including hairstyles, corsets, make-up, jewelry, and shoes. He finds

anything that constrains, hides, or deforms the natural shape of

the body to be unhealthy and unworthy of representation by the

artist: "Women who ruin their feet and their waist as well as

their face, no more than those who carry heavy burdens, are

not appropriate to serve as our models, neither the one or the

other" (lines 144-147). A woman is "spoiled by the paint that

she applies to herself from the tip of her hair to her neck. The

forehead is plucked in order to form seven points; the eyebrows

are shaped, waxed, and painted. The cheeks, great God, you

know about it—the white, the red, everything is permitted. The

ears are ruined by... enormous earrings.... The neck is often

spoiled by necklaces that are too tight;... the knees... by the

garters,.. .the feet by the shoe" (lines 148-164). Houdon even

goes so far as to design and have made shoes for men or

women that accommodate the natural form of the foot. He

35
sends Ernst II a cast of the foot of the Medici Venus, writing

that, "it is a foot neither too small nor too large. It is the shape

of a foot that has never worn shoes. I find in it something to

be desired" (lines 172-175).

Incensed about women's hairstyles, the sculptor sends four

prints of mediocre quality to the duke to illustrate how outrageous they can be, saying, "I would accept dressing the hair

with all of the waves and counter-waves possible as long as it

was flattering to the person" (lines 183-185). Houdon goes on

to observe that, in an effort to please men, French women cinch

their waists so tightly that they "make themselves in their bodies like ants, almost separated in the middle" (lines 192-193):

"One day I asked M. Diderot concerning women what he

thought of cinched waists. What I think about it, he said to me?

You are unaware then of the distinction I make between French

and Italian women. Italian women are made to have children,

and ours to be... he said it to me quite frankly. Your highness

must understand [that] he is a man boiling, all aflame. For pleasure, said he [Diderot], that is the distinction that I make" (lines

211-218).

This discourse on fashion is consistent with Houdon's general

views of art—that what is most beautiful is most natural and

that the human body in its perfection is far more healthy and

desirable than when it has been painted, adorned with a wig

and heavy jewelry, and reigned in with corsets and tight, highheeled shoes. Houdon's reference to Diderot is especially

significant here, for it reveals the closeness and relaxed nature

of their relationship. It is apparent that the sculptor was on intimate terms with the philosopher as well as with Duke Ernst II

and that he felt comfortable telling the latter this slightly salacious story about the former. It is also an indication that the

young Houdon was a part of the intellectual circle around

Grimm and Diderot and that the abundance of ideas about

aesthetics, sculpture, education, and the role of antiquity that

are articulated in this remarkable document must have been

aired before and profoundly influenced by these powerful

Enlightenment figures.

4- SUM MAR Y OBJ ECT LIST 4-

The following compilation lists the works Houdon shipped to Duke Ernst

II of Saxe-Gotha in July 1772, organized in thematic and chronological order.

It also provides the earliest references to each work in the Gotha inventories,

its mention in the most recent catalogue of the collection (Schuttwolf 1995),

and, if applicable, a brief identification and reference to related works. Objects

that have been identified and are extant in the collections in Gotha are indicated with an asterisk (*).

ABBREVIATION S

cat. 1804-1827: "Verzeichniss der im sogenannten Antiken-Saale

befindlichen Abgüsse, Büsten pp.," ThStA, Gotha, no. 63 [ca. 1804-1827]:

"Cap: I. An Abgussen von Antiken—Statuen und Gruppen"

"Cap: II. An Büsten, antiken und modernen"

"Cap: III. An kleinen Modellen, antik und modern"

"Cap: V. An Büsten, Haut- und Basreliefs, nach den Lokalitàten unterschieden..."

cat. 1845: "Catalog der Sammlung der Gips-Abgüsse," Schlossmuseum

Gotha, 1845.

cat. 1857: Eduard Wolfgang, "Verzeichniss der Abgüsse antiker und moderner Bildhauerarbeiten im Herzogl: Antiken-Cabinet zu Gotha," Schlossmuseum Gotha, 1857.

Works by Houdon

*Ecorche, Rome 1767

Klebe 1796, 87, in "Antiken-Sammlung": "ein anatomisches Stuck von

Houdon zu Paris"; cat. 1804-1827, "Cap: I," fol. yv, no. 29: "Ein Anatomic

von Houdon"; cat. 1845, "Statuen," no. 18: "Anatomic / von Houdon"; cat.

1857, no. III.6o; cat. 1869, no. IV.38; Schuttwolf 1995, 130-131, no. 45.

Related Works: see present cat. i.

*Heaa of Saint John the Baptist, Salon of 1769

Cat. 1804-1827, "Cap: II," fol. 47, nos. 3-4: "Maria und Christus"; cat. 1845,

"Büsten," no. 38: "Christus / von Houdon"; cat. 1857, no. 111.69; cat. 1869,

no. 17.46; Schuttwolf 1995,129, no. 44. Related Works: see present cat. 3.

* Saint Bruno, Salon of 1769 (present cat. 4)

Cat. 1804-1827, "Cap: III," fol. 57, no. 17: "Der heilige Bruno"; cat. 1845,

"Kleinere Statuen," no. 54: "St. Bruno / von Houdon"; cat. 1857, no. III.6i;

cat. 1869, no. 17.37; Schuttwolf 1995,132, no. 46.

Small Head of Saint Bruno

Possibly one of the reduced heads in cat. 1804-1827, "Cap: III," fol. 6r, nos.

24-28: "Fünf kleine Kôpfe." Identification and Related Works: see present

cat. 4.

* Priest of the Lupercalia, Salon of 1769 (present cat. 5)

Cat. 1804-1827, "Cap: III," fol. 6r, no. 21: "Ein Silen die Becken schlagend";

Rathgeber 1835,49; cat. 1845, "Kleinere Statuen," no. 44: "Ein Priester des

Bachus"; cat. 1857, no. 10.91: "Mànnliche laufende Figur"; cat. 1869, no.

IV.49; Schuttwolf 1995,133, no. 47.

Vestal (see fig. 4)

Lost in WWII; cat. 1804-1827, "Cap: III," fol. 6r, no. 23: "Vesta"; cat. 1845,

"Kleinere Statuen," no. 52: "Eine Vestalin, welche das heilige Feuer tràgt";

cat. 1857, no. III.i2i: "Hydrophore, Copie nach einer antik. [Bronze]"; cat.

36
ETAT DES CHOSES: A RECENTL Y DISCOVERE D DOCUMEN T BY HOUDO N

1869, no. 111.74: "Weibliche Figur, heiliges Wasser tragend. Kleine Copie

einer im Capitol befmdlichen Marmorstatue"; Schuttwolf 1995,14, ill.

-Head of a Vestal

Cat. 1804-1827, "Cap: II," fol. 4v, nos. 3-4: "Maria und Christus"; cat. 1845,

"Büsten," no. 37: "Maria / von Houdon"; cat. 1857, no. 111.70; cat. 1869, no.

IV.47; Schuttwolf 1995,134-135, no. 48.

-Peasant Girl from Frascati, Salon of 1769

Possibly cat. 1804-1827, "Cap: II," fol. 5r, no. 27: "Eine moderne Buste von

Houdon"; possibly cat. 1845, "Büsten," no. 21: "Eine Buste von Houdon,

unbekannt"; cat. 1857, no. III.68: "Kopf einer Italienerin, von demselben

[Houdon]"; cat. 1869, no. IV.45; Schuttwolf 1995,136-137, no. 49. Related

Works: see present cat. 6.

-Morpheus, Salon of 1771

Klebe 1796, 87, in "Antiken-Sammlung": "Morpheus"; cat. 1804-1827,

"Cap: I," fol. 3r, no. 12: "Morpheus, schlafende Figur von Houdon /modern"; cat. 1845, "Statuen," no. 21: "Morpheus / von Houdon"; cat. 1857, no.

111.58; cat. 1869, no. 17.36; Schuttwolf 1995, 138-139, no. 50. Related

Works: see present cat. 7.

Head of Minerva (see fig. 5)

Lost in WWII; cat. 1804-1827, "Cap: V," fol. 8v, no. 19: "[Bas-relief] der

IV.20 or 48; Schuttwolf 1995,14, ill.

Related Works: Salon cat. 1777,49, no. 251, marble medallion, pendant

to Head of Apollo (see Dacier 1909-1921,4:59; and Vitry 1907^ 205); marble relief offered in posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio, Paris,

15-17 Dec. 1828,13, no. i: "destiné à être appliqué sur un fond."

Head of Alexander

Possibly cat. 1804-1827, "Cap: V," fol. 8v, no. 17: "Haut Relief, den Griechischen Kaiser Alexander vorstellend." Possibly in Salon cat. 1771,49, no. 283:

"La lete d'Alexandre. Médaillon plus grand que le naturel, pour faire pendant à une tête antique de Minerve de même grandeur & de même relief."

de l'Antique"; a marble version was sold in Houdon's studio sale, 8 Oct.

1795,14, no. 76: "Méduse, coëfTée en cheveux, mêlés de serpents, Médaillon demi-relief, de 6 pouces 9 lignes de haut, sur 6 pouces de large" (2001

livres).

Relief of a Priestess of Diana

Possibly cat. 1804-1827, "Cap: V," fol. 9r, no. 17: "Ein Ovales Médaillon

einer opfernden Figur."

Two little terracotta birds

Unidentified.

Copies

Bas-relief of Hercules Farnese, by Friedrich Wilhelm Doell

Cat. 1804-1827, "Cap: V," fol. 8r, no. 2: "[Ein Hautrelief] des farnesischen

Hercules"; cat. 1845, under "Relief," no. 7; cat. 1857, no. 01.103; cat. 1869,

no. IV.74.

Bas-relief of Ecorche, by Friedrich Wilhelm Doell

Cat. 1804-1827, "Cap: V," fol. 8r, no. 3: "Anatomic von Houdon."

Homer

Cat. 1845, "Büsten," no. 25; cat. 1857, no. 11.51; cat. 1869, no. 111.52. Probably after the Blind Homer in the Capitoline Museum, Rome, a Roman copy

in marble of a ca. 200 BC Hellenistic original.

Demosthenes

Cat. 1845, "Büsten," no. 9; cat. 1857, no. 11.52; cat. 1869, no. 10.54. Probably after the original Greek bronze by Polyeuktos of 280 BC, documented

in several Roman copies, including a marble bust in the Louvre.

Caracalla

After the 3rd century AD Roman marble bust in the Museo Nazionale,

Naples.

Le Baiser donné

Related Works: see present cat. 41.

Head of a Cupid Crowned with Myrtle ("Roman Youth")

Possibly cat. 1804-1827, "Cap: II," fol. 4V, no. n: "Eine mit Wein bekrânzte

Büste." Possibly in Salon cat. 1771, 49, no. 284: "Deux Têtes de jeunes

Hommes; l'une, couronnée de Mirte... .De ronde bosse & de grandeur

naturelle."

Related Works: marbles in collections of Peter Guggenheim, New York,

and Stewart and Lynda Resnick, Los Angeles; Houdon's studio sale, Paris,

8 Oct. 1795, 13-14, no. 73: "Une Tête d'Amour, il est coëffé en cheveux

naturellement bouclés & couronné de branche de myrthe, posé sur piedouche & socle de même matière; hauteur totale 19 pouces" (4,950 livres);

Houdon's posthumous sale, 15-17 Dec. 1828,19, no. 59: "Marbre blanc.—

Buste de jeune homme couronné de myrte."

Head of Medusa

Probably a copy after a head on the breastplate of a bust of the Emperor

Hadrian, Capitoline Museum, Rome (see fig. 6).

Related Works: Salon cat. 1775, no. 262: "Une Tête de Méduse, imitée

7. Equestrian Statue of Louis XV, in Bordeaux, medal engraved by Jean

Duvivier, 2733 (Nocq 1911,172-173, no. 119).

37
8. Henry IV, prize of the Academy of La Rochelle, medal engraved by

Pierre-Simon-Benjamin Duvivier, ijG8 (Nocq 1911,187-188, no. 157).

"A Vestal" and "Two Naiads," by an unknown artist, pastel drawings under

glass.

"Triumph of P[an]," engraving by Comte de Caylus (1692-1765), after

the antique.

"Turned vases," engraving by Comte de Caylus (?).

Medal proofs

By Jean Duvivier

Coronation of Louis XV, 1722 (Nocq 1911,153-154, no. 62).

Saint Michael Striking Down the Angels, 1723 (Nocq 1911,157, no. 70).

Mr. le Maréchal de Villars and its reverse.

Foot of the Venus de Medici

Possibly one of the antique feet in cat. 1845, "Kleinere Statuen," nos. 88-96:

"8 antike und moderne Fiifèe"; cat. 1857, nos. 0.111-114: "Antike Fufèe. drei

davon colossal mit Sandalen."

Related Works: possibly documented by Louis-Leopold Boilly in a preparatory study for his painting of Houdon in His Studio (see cat. 66, fig. 2).

Bust of an Unknown Man (with drapery)

Unidentified; from an antique group representing a wedding scene; full

copy in plaster formerly in the Palazzo Mancini, Rome (Académie de France).

Small Flayed Horse

Cat. 1804-1827, "Cap: III," fol. 5v, no. n: "Anatomic eines Pferdes"; cat.

1845, "Kleinere Statuen," no. 50: "Fine Anatomic von einem Pferd"; cat.

1857, no. 138; cat. 1869, 25, no. 107. Unidentified half-size model of a

bronze original, formerly in the Villa Mattei, Rome.

Head of Venus

Unidentified; plaster "repaired" by Houdon and noted for its outstanding

whiteness.

Four bas-reliefs representing the Four Parts of the World

Cat. 1845,

 no

- 5: "vier Stuck Basreliefs, die Weltheile bedeutend"; cat. 1857,

111.72-75; cat. 1869, no. IV.i6-i9: "Die vier Welttheile Europa, Asien, Africa

und America, durch weibliche Figuren versinnbildlicht. Reliefs von grosser

Schônheit aus dem 16. Jahrhundert." Unidentified; after Balin, as below.

Relief of Louis XIV as Apollo

Unidentified; after the lost table service of Louis XIV by Balin, goldsmith to

the king; copper reliefs belonging to the engraver Duvivier.

Mr. le Duc de Bourbon and its reverse, 1724 (Nocq 1911,159, no. 77).

Equestrian Statue of Louis XV, in Bordeaux, 1733 (Nocq 1911,172-173, no. 119)

(see fig. 7).

Medals of different dates with the history of the king, measuring 18 lignes

in diameter.

By Pierre-Simon-Benjamin Duvivier

Equestrian Statue of Louis XV with a reverse for the six merchants' guilds,

1763 (Nocq 1911,183, no. 147).

The King in Formal Dress, done five years earlier, the resemblance of which

is striking; with two reverses remarkable for the delicacy of the workmanship, and the regularity of the buildings.

Henry IV, prize of the Academy of La Rochelle, 1768 (Nocq 1911,187-188,

no. 156) (see fig. 8).

Duc de Villars, prize of the Academy of Marseilles; reverse with a genius

holding crowns to reward Agriculture, Commerce, and Navigation, 1766

(Nocq 1911,186-187,

 no

-

1

54)-

Medal cast by the city of Lyons for the same purpose.

Different subjects from the history of Louis XV.

Octagonal jeton in the new fashion, representing Mr. l'Evêque de Rheims and

its reverse, 1771 (Nocq 1911, 299, no. 570).

Drawings, Paintings, and Prints

Four mediocre prints illustrating hairstyles and fashion.

"Mme Boucher, holding a brochure in her hand," by Marie-Anne or

Madeleine- Pélagie Houdon, pastel with fixative by M. Loriot.

Several pastels and drawings by Marie-Anne or Madeleine-Pélagie Houdon,

without fixative.

3»
ETA T DES CHOSES : A RECENTL Y DISCOVERE D DOCUMEN T B Y HOUDO N

In thé course of doing research for the present

catalogue, Ulrike D. Mathies (Boston) discovered the

document discussed in this essay. Christoph Frank

(Rome) discovered the same document independently.

Anne Poulet wishes to thank Ms. Mathies for having

compiled the Summary Object List, with its inventory

references, and to thank both Ms. Mathies and Mr.

Frank for their collaboration throughout the study

of this document.

1. For a full discussion of this project see

Frank, Mathies, and Poulet 20023, 213-221;

Frank, Mathies, and Poulet 2oo2b, 475-484.

2. On Houdon's portraits of the ducal family see

the essay "Houdon and the German Courts" and

the entries for cats. 55-56 in the present catalogue.

3. For details see Rau 2000, 56-68.

4. Schuttwolf 1995,14-16,129-157, nos. 44-65.

5. FLB, Chart A 712, fols. 8r-i4r. Its script is that

of a professional copyist, whose services Houdon

occasionally used for important documents.

6. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, Handschriftenabteilung, Autogr. IX, A; published in Grimm

(ed. 1972), no. 140, 215-216.

7. Réau 1923, 41-52.

8. Bresc-Bautier 1994, 372-373.

9. Before he joined Houdon's studio, Doell had been

experimenting with a kind of glossy finish for plasters

("Gipsglanz"), which he hoped would lend durability to

the figures. See Rau 2000, 22-23.

10. A mother mold is a larger piece into which the

smaller pieces are fitted to hold them in place.

11. This was the mold for the bronze Equestrian Statue

of Louis XV by Edme Bouchardon that had been cast in

one piece on 6 May 1758 in the studio later occupied

by Houdon. The bronze statue was installed in what is

now the Place de la Concorde but destroyed at the time

of the Revolution. See Bresc-Bautier 1994, 373, 376 nn.

6-io.

12. Doell writes about his experiences in Paris and his

opinion about the academy in a series of letters to his

friend Bertuch, discussed in Rau 2000, 28-32.

39

HOU DON AND THE GERMA N COURTS!

SERVIN G TH E FRANCOPHIL E PRINCE S

Ulrike D. Mathies

ost of the approximately seventy extant works by Houdon in Germany were acquired

in the eighteenth century by German noble families,1 a historical link still reflected

in the locations of the main collections in Gotha, Schwerin, Berlin (with Potsdam

and Rheinsberg), and Weimar. For the approximately three hundred sovereign territories within

the German Empire, as for nearly all courts throughout Europe, France was the ultimate cultural

and political model, relentlessly copied in its fashion, literature, architecture, and language.2 French

was universally spoken and written by the German aristocracy, and an educational journey to

Paris, the heart of intellectual and court life, belonged to the well-rounded upbringing of young

noblemen or princes. In this context it is less surprising that one of those small Francophile German principalities, the court of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, became Houdon's first major patron at a

time when the gifted sculptor was just beginning his career in Paris after his student years in

Rome. Although Houdoris two visits to Gotha in the early 17705 were his only trips to Germany,

his oeuvre and his reputation drew Germans as clients throughout his life.

Central to almost all of Houdon's German commissions was the expatriate Frédéric-Melchior

Grimm (1723-1807),3 a prominent figure of the Paris Enlightenment who served as advisor

and cultural attaché to several members of the German nobility. A native of the imperial city of

Regensburg, he had settled in the French capital in 1749 and became a close friend of the influential critic Denis Diderot and his collaborator on the Encyclopédie.4

 With the publication of the Correspondance littéraire, a semiprivate cultural newsletter distributed in manuscript form to an

exclusive circle of ruling foreign families, Grimm had a compelling tool to gain the favor of the

powerful and to shape their opinions.5 His subscribers included King Frederick II and his brother

Prince Henry of Prussia, Duchess Louise Dorothea of Saxe-Gotha and her son Duke Ernst II,

Duke Carl August of Saxe-Weimar, and Margrave Alexander of Ansbach, in addition to the courts

of Russia, Sweden, and Poland.

Detail o/Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha, cat. 56

41

M
Coedited by Diderot and Grimm's long-standing confidante,

Mme d'Epinay (1726-1783), the Correspondance littéraire was a

valuable means of communication between the French

philosophes and the European authorities, with the implicit

intent to aid the political realization of Enlightenment ideas by

educating its influential readership. On a more concrete level

the newsletter was an excellent source of uncensored information on Parisian intellectual life. It also helped promote select

authors, composers, or artists, which often resulted in the

increased acquisition of the works reviewed. By the mid-1770 s

Grimm withdrew from his activities as a literary critic in favor

of working directly for those in power. He received officiai

appointments as minister plenipotentiary (Geheimer Rat) for

the duke of Saxe-Gotha in 1775 and councillor of state for Catherine II of Russia in 1777. Until his final departure from Paris in

1792, his responsibilities ranged from important diplomatic

missions to art transactions to escorting foreign visitors through

Paris. Both Grimm and Diderot were already on very friendly

terms with Houdon by 1772, when they are recorded as casually stopping by his house.7

•f HOUDO N AND GOTH A 4-

From his early days in Paris, Grimm was attached to the court

of Saxe-Gotha, which in spite of its limited financial resources

had acquired a taste for French splendor and joie de vivre.

Duchess Louise Dorothea (1710-1767), the highly cultivated

wife of Duke Friedrich III (1699-1772), was one of the first

subscribers to Grimm's Correspondance littéraire and played a

9

key role in bringing the Enlightenment to Gotha. Her son Ernst

Ludwig (1745 -1804), who reigned as Ernst II, focused on the

arts and sciences and, while economically prudent, added considerably to the ducal collections in Schloss Friedenstein. Apparently, as part of an ambitious plan to turn Gotha into a major

center of Enlightenment activities in Germany, he initiated the

foundation of an art academy at his court and established a collection of plaster casts for educational purposes.

In 1771, thanks to Grimm's intervention, Houdon was

engaged to take over the design and execution of a funerary

monument for the late duchess of Saxe-Gotha, a project that

had already been in the works for several years. Houdon traveled to Gotha twice—from 25 October to 3 December 1771, and

again, after the duke's death, from 2 May to 15 June 1773, when

the plans for the mausoleum were changed to commemorate

both husband and wife. During his first visit Houdon not only

studied the location for the projected tomb but also rendered

the portraits of several members of the ducal family and

befriended Ernst Ludwig and his spouse, Charlotte Amalie of

Saxe-Meiningen. In anticipation of his cultural plans for Gotha,

the hereditary prince spontaneously decided to send his protégé Friedrich Wilhelm Doell (1750-1816), a former model

maker for porcelain figures, to Paris with Houdon to be trained

as a sculptor in Houdon's studio. In July 1772, following Ernst's

ascension to the throne, Houdon mailed an assortment of sixteen of his early works in plaster to Gotha, including the figures

of the Saint Bruno and the Priest of the Lupercalia (cats. 4 and 5)

as well as copies after the antique, drawings, and medals, all of

which were intended to be study objects in the duke's planned

art academy. The shipment was accompanied by a recently discovered letter, in which the sculptor gives a detailed account of

the pieces in the crates, explains or defends some of his compositions, and articulates his opinions, granting insight into his

14

beliefs both as an artist and as a person. Despite his dismissal

from the ill-fated tomb project in 1775

 an<^tne

 court's failure to

keep the marble statue of Diana the Huntress (see cat. 35),

Houdon continued his cordial relationship with the ducal family for decades and was highly respected for his skills as a portraitist. Over the years the plaster version of the Diana and

several representative portraits were acquired, including busts

of Voltaire, Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Benjamin Franklin,

and Jean-Sylvain Bailly (see cat. 33). Originally displayed in the

halls of Schloss Friedenstein or incorporated directly into the

collection of plaster casts that from 1786 onward was overseen

by Houdon's former student Doell, most of these sculptures

have been preserved until today, forming the largest collection

of works by Houdon outside of France15.

As shown by recently published documents, Grimm and

Diderot were instrumental in the planning of the funerary monument for the court of Gotha. Their deliberations as donneurs

d'idées, or iconographie advisors, took the form of a vivid epistolary correspondence and involved the above-mentioned Mme

d'Epinay in Paris as well as her Neapolitan friend, Abbé Ferdinando Galiani (1728-1787); Grimm acted, as usual, as intermediary for the court. Whereas the long-debated mausoleum

was never realized, the visible results of another instance of such

intellectual patronage can be studied in the portrait medallions

of Friedrich III and Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha (cats. 55-56), the earliest known works executed by Houdon for a German patron.

Although smaller in scale, they illustrate the immense influence

the philosophes had in the early 17705 on both the young Duke

Ernst II in Gotha and the emerging sculptor in Paris.

42
HOUDO N AN D TH E GERMA N COURT S

Soon after the death of Friedrich III on 10 March 1772, and

amid renewed discussions concerning the mausoleum, Ernst

II decided to issue a medal in memory of his father. As usual

in such matters he consulted his advisor Grimm, explicitly asking for the input of the "men of letters and of taste," especially

the "charming abbot of Naples," Galiani. This distinguished

diplomat and economist, an intimate of the Enlightenment circle surrounding Diderot, was a personal acquaintance of Ernst

18

and had helped design a celebratory medal for him in the past.

As a connoisseur and collector of ancient coins, Ernst had a

clear concept of what his medal should look like. In his letter to

Grimm he suggested that the obverse show his father's bust

truncated at the neck, "copied after the plaster by Houdon, hair

in the antique style," and that it be inscribed with his father's

name. For the reverse he imagined a standing génie, an allegorical figure of mourning, supported by an extinguished torch

that pointed at two shields bearing the names "Gotha" and

"Altenbourg," and inscriptions reading "moeror publiais" and

"D. x. MARS. MDCCLXXII." Immediately taking on the organization of the project, Grimm arranged for the shipment of

Houdon's plaster from Gotha to his own address in Paris, warning that every possible precaution should be taken to avoid

19

transport-related damage. Indicating that the medal was to be

struck in Paris, Grimm promised the duke to assure personally

its high quality, in regard both to the importance of the subject

and to the high standards of Gotha's mint.

In late June Grimm forwarded Ernst's proposal to Abbé

Galiani in Naples, specifying that the medal "must have an

antique appearance, like the ruins of Herculaneum." An expert

in ancient art and history, renowned for his Latin skills, and a

serious coin collector himself, Galiani responded with a comprehensive and witty lecture on the subject. The ancient Greeks

and Romans, he noted, never mourned their dead princes, and

if there was one country that had no reason to grieve over their

new ruler it was Saxe-Gotha. Thus, one could not find a suitable prototype for a commemorative medal among the ancient

coinage until after the Romans had ended the practice of deifying their emperors. From those later examples Galiani chose

two bronze medals honoring the emperors Claudius Gothicus

and Maximianus and bearing the words "Requies optimor:

merit" (Repose of the highest merits), both identifiable as part

of a series struck posthumously under Constantine the Great

(fig. i). "Here is my medal," Galiani rejoiced, explaining that

the obverse was to display the head of the Friedrich III "hair in

the antique style," as required by Ernst, but with the royal headi. Commemorative bronze coin for Claudius Gothicus, drawing published in

Henry Cohen, Description historique des monnaies frappés sous l'empire

romain, 8 vols. (Paris, 1880-1892), 6:154, fig. 243.

band, the sign of sovereignty worn by all ancient kings, plus the

inscription "Divo Frederico Gothico, óptimo principi." For the

reverse Galiani imagined the seated and elegantly dressed figure

of the duke; in front of him a palm tree, symbol of eternity, with

the coats of arms of Gotha and Altenburg hanging down and

fasces lying at the bottom; and as inscriptions the cited "Requies

optimor: merit" as well as the date of the duke's death in the

exergue. If, however, the duke insisted on his own ideas, the

abbot mockingly stated, he should consider that such a génie

with his torch upside down pointing at the shields would imply

that the late duke set his states on fire, just as a similar figure

on the reverse of Hadrian's medals represents the burning

of old debts. Galiani also recommended that the duke limit

the number of génies to one, as they embody the soul of the

deceased, whose spirit is symbolized by the extinguishing torch.

He then corrected the Latin of Ernst's proposed inscriptions.23

Galiani's design for the medal was well received in Paris.24

By the end of 1772 Houdon's plasters arrived in Paris from

Gotha, and Grimm notified the duke: "Since the medallions

have arrived here in sad shape, they are in the hands of M.

Houdon, who does not allow anyone to readjust them. I also

informed him about all the ideas your Serene Highness had in

regard to the medal: because it is he again who wants to arrange

the head of the late Monseigneur le Duc in plaster so that the

medallist can just copy it; he already consulted the medals indicated for that purpose.... I hope that your Highness will see the

fruits of our conversations on this subject." In January 1773

Grimm announced more meetings with Houdon and made

clear that although everyone was doing their best the medal

could not be finished before the end of the official mourning for

Friedrich III in March. Ten months later, on 16 November

43
2a-b. Houdon, obverse and reverse of commemorative medal for Friedrich III

of Saxe-Gotha, 1775, silver, Schlossmuseum Gotha.

1773, the completed medal, engraved by the famous medallist

Pierre-Simon-Benjamin Duvivier (1730-1819), entered the ducal

collection in two versions, silver and bronze (see fig. 2 a-b; and

cats. 55-56, fig. i a-b). Grimm confirmed the duke's satisfaction, "I am delighted that Your Serene Highness is pleased with

the medal," while Galiani proudly reported to Mme d'Epinay:

"The duke of Saxe-Gotha sent me the medal in gold, engraved

28

after my design, accompanied by an extraordinary letter."

Houdon's medallion of Friedrich III (cat. 55) represents the

front of this commemorative medal and follows Galiani's iconographie advice in all details. Its companion piece, the portrait of

Ernst II (cat. 56), is a congenial adaptation and shows how the

sculptor employed the same artistic principles for the younger

sitter. The accomplished inscriptions on both medallions, with

their abbreviations and complex cases, are also typical of

Galiani's command of Latin. On the other hand, Ernst II's purposeful choice of ancient prototypes and his desire to recreate

29

"the purest antique style" reveal a certain propensity for the

highly refined neoclassicism practiced in Italy by followers of

Johann Winckelmann. The same year he became duke and commissioned the medal, Ernst II appointed Johann Friedrich

Reiffenstein (1719-1793), Winckelmann's successor in Rome

and an ardent critic of the French style, as councilor to the court

of Gotha. In part through the increasing influence of this antiquarian, the court of Gotha eventually withdrew from the

Parisian aesthetics represented by Houdon and abandoned the

mausoleum project.

4- VISITOR S TO PARI S 4

As a result of Houdon's growing popularity, his studio in Paris,

which was by 1775 situated at the prestigious address of the Bibliothèque du Roi in the rue Richelieu (see cats. 10 and 23),

became a veritable tourist attraction. While his name must have

already been familiar at a number of courts in Germany that

were related to that in Gotha, it was again Grimm and his circle who made an active effort to introduce visiting foreigners

to the sculptor's work. For Grimm's Francophile charges,

Houdon's studio became one of the customary stops during

their stay in the French capital, along with monuments, museums, and private collections.

The seventeen-year-old hereditary prince of Saxe-Weimar,

30

Carl August (1757-1828), a cousin of Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha,

traveled to Paris with his younger brother Constantin at the

beginning of 1775. As their cicerone, Grimm was entrusted

with organizing the details of their itinerary as well as their

accommodation at the residence of the duc de Chartres in the

rue Richelieu, near Houdon's studio. Carl August's trip, following his engagement to Princess Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt,

was intended to improve his diplomatic connections and to

enlarge his cultural horizons before he became duke at eighteen.

As was customary for such an educational journey, or "Kavaliersreise," the young men were guided by their tutors, Johann

Eustachius Graf von Gôrtz and the literary Baron Karl Ludwig

von Knebel, in touring the sites, participating in the most fashionable salons, and being introduced to scientists, intellectuals,

and artists. On 3 March they attended a performance of

Gluck's opera Iphigénie en Aulide, and five days later they met

the much-acclaimed composer in person, just before his depar34

ture for Vienna. Apparently Knebel took a preliminary look

at Houdon's studio with Diderot before the whole group went

there on 15 March, as Graf von Gôrtz wrote in a letter to his

36

wife. In the studio they were able to admire, among other

works, the portraits of singer Sophie Arnould and composer

Christoph Willibald Gluck (cats. 8-10), which Houdon was to

exhibit in the Salon of that year. Carl August was so pleased

with the resemblance of these busts to the illustrious personages

he had just met that he immediately acquired them in plaster.37

Almost ten years later he bought the newly finished portrait of

Prince Henry of Prussia (cat. 54), probably without ever having seen it. Carl August's awakened interest in French art in

general and Houdon's works in particular continued after his

return to Weimar and his ascension to the throne. In September 1775 the Paris-based Hellenist J.-B. Gaspard d'Ansse de

Villoison, a friend of Knebel who aspired to become the

Weimar court's literary correspondent and business advisor,

enclosed in his letter to Carl August an account of the sculptures

44
HOUDO N AN D TH E GERMA N COURT S

3. Houdon, Friedrich Franz I of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 1782, terracotta,

Staatliches Museum, Schwerin.

4. Houdon, Louise of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 1782, terracotta, Staatliches

Museum, Schwerin.

in the latest Salon: "As I know your taste for sculpture, my lord,

I asked M. Houdon to write a report on the finest pieces by him

39

as well as by other artists who exhibited at the Louvre."

On a comparable journey to Paris in the winter of 1782 the

hereditary prince of the northern German duchy of Meck40

lenburg-Schwerin, Friedrich Franz (1756 -1842), and his wife,

Louise, commissioned their own portraits from Houdon (figs.

3-4). Although in this instance all arrangements were made

by their minister in Paris, the comte Diodati, Grimm was in

contact with the princely couple and dined with them at least

41

once. Handwritten travel journals by two members of the

entourage, the lady-in-waiting Juliana Marianne von Rantzau

42

and chamberlain August Georg von Brandenstein, recount

the visits to Houdon's workshop and are testimony to the

sculptor's speedy work. As part of their sightseeing program

the Germans toured the Bibliothèque du Roi on 2 December

1782, when Rantzau wrote: "in the large block occupied by the

library is the studio of M. Houdon, great sculptor in marble and

other materials, where we saw some very beautiful statues. The

prince and princess were so tempted to have their busts done

that they will begin their sittings tomorrow." Brandenstein

observed: "Their Highnesses saw there the busts of several of

their acquaintances and were so astonished at their likenesses

that they resolved to have their own busts done as well."44

Princess Louise had her first sittings on the mornings of

4 and 5 December, after which Brandenstein already noticed

considerable resemblance in the advancing portrait. Following

a three-day excursion to Versailles, the princess resumed her

sittings on lo December, and Friedrich Franz went in three days

later; by that time Louise's bust was almost finished, "at least

the features were formed and waited only for the hand of the

master to perfect them." Only six days later the prince and

his entourage left the French capital carrying several boxes

of souvenirs and artwork, with more shipments to come. A

significant part of Schwerin's large collection of fifteen busts

by Houdon, most of them made of terracotta-colored plaster

45
5. Adolf Menzel, "Weitëlackierte Kammer" in Schlo£ Rheinsberg (showing

Houdoris busts of the duc de Nivernais and the comtesse de Sabrán), 1860,

graphite on paper, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.

and predating 1782, must have been acquired on this trip.47

Many works represent personalities that Friedrich Franz and

Louise had encountered in Paris, in one way or another—including Gluck, one of whose operas they attended; Voltaire,

Rousseau, and d'Alembert as the acknowledged philosophes;

and the comte de Buffon as the owner of the Cabinet d'histoire

naturelle they visited. A description of Schloss Ludwigslust in

48

1803 refers to "several busts by Houdon in terracotta," installed

in a small room next to the paintings gallery, while the busts of

Friedrich Franz, by then the reigning duke, and his wife would

49

have been displayed in a more prominent location.

Another sizable collection of works by Houdon in Germany

was assembled by Prince Henry of Prussia (1726-1802), the

younger brother of King Frederick II. Henry was already fiftyeight years old when he traveled to Paris for the first time in

50

1784; a second trip followed in 1788-1789. The Francophile

prince, introduced by his longtime correspondent Grimm,

befriended numerous amateurs and members of the enlightened aristocracy and participated in the usual mix of intellectual,

social, and cultural activities, including a visit to Houdon's studio. In a letter to Frederick II of 5 October 1784 Henry lauded

the sculptor's extraordinary skills and the stunning exactness

of his portraits. He failed to mention, however, the sittings for

his own bust, which survives in two variants and apparently

was intended as a gift to family members and friends (see cat.

54). Over time the prince purchased a number of other works

from Houdon for his palace in Rheinsberg near Berlin, portraits of sitters that ranged from the famous encyclopédistes to

his personal friends and acquaintances. Although dispersed

today, the collection can be largely reconstructed thanks to the

inventories of the contents of Schloss Rheinsberg taken after

Henry's death as well as pictorial documents, especially two

graphite drawings by Adolf Menzel (see fig. 5). This famous

German painter and illustrator visited Rheinsberg in 1860,

capturing views of the palace and its decoration in more than

twenty sketches before it fell into neglect in the later nineteenth

century. Evidently all of the busts by Houdon were placed on

matching brackets and mounted high up on the walls, their

former location within the palace suggesting an installation

date after 1786, when the rooms were newly decorated. It was

supposedly here, surrounded by the images of his old French

friends, such as the comtesse de Sabrán and the duc de Nivernais (figs. 6 and 7), that the aging Henry preferred to stay in

the last years of his life.

Houdon's German clientele in the eighteenth century consisted primarily of visiting members of smaller courts, who were

interested in portrait busts of public figures or of people they

knew. Owing to their financial limitations, they preferred

the low-cost versions in plaster or terracotta, reinforcing the

souvenir- or memento-like character of their acquisitions. An

exception is Margrave Alexander of Ansbach's "bust of Voltaire

by Houdon, in white Carrara marble," which by 1786 he exhibited in his bedroom "on the oriental marble table." Even more

extraordinary were Henry of Prussia's commission of his own

likeness in bronze and his brother Frederick II's earlier purchase

of a marble bust of Voltaire in 1781 (cat. 24). Although the latter

was not associated with a personal visit to Paris by Frederick but

negotiated in written correspondence over a period of two and

a half years, the transaction was again initiated by a member of

Grimm's circle of philosophes, Jean Le Rond d'Alembert (1717-

1783), coeditor with Diderot of the Encyclopédie. D'Alembert's

involvement is characteristic of the way Houdon was systematically supported and promoted by the proponents of the Paris

Enlightenment, both inside and outside of France, and it indicates

that the sculptor had been chosen to represent in concrete form

46
HOUDO N AN D TH E GERMA N COURT S

6. Houdon, Duc de

Nivernais, ça. ijSj,

terracotta, Stiftung

Schlôsser und Garten

Potsdam-Sanssouci,

Rheinsberg.

7. Houdon, Comtesse

de Sabrán, ca. 1785,

terracotta, Stiftung

Schlôsser und Garten

Potsdam-Sanssouci,

Rheinsberg.

their appearance and their ideas. To help Houdon multiply and

spread these images, especially among independent foreign

rulers, was a logical consequence of the philosophes' larger aspiration to educate those in power and transform them into enlightened monarchs. Even long after the French Revolution, Houdoris

studio remained a magnet for traveling Germans, including

the Prussian King Frederick William III (1770-1840), as the

Moniteur universel reported in September 1815: "His Majesty the

King of Prussia, accompanied by the famous traveler, M. de

Humboldt, visited the day before yesterday the studio of M.

Houdon. His Majesty seemed to be satisfied above all with the

bust of Molière, in which the artist succeeded in conveying the

creative personality and at the same time faithfully rendered

the features of the creator of our comic theater."57

47
The author wishes to express her gratitude to all

individuals and institutions that facilitated her

research in Germany, particularly those mentioned

in this contribution. Most heartfelt thanks are due

Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey E. Marshall (Boston) for their

generous support. In appreciation of their unfailing

interest and belief in the Houdon project, this

essay is dedicated to Peter and Christa Mathies

and Lorenz Willmann.

1. The most complete account of Houdon's sculptures

in Germany is Mansfeld 1955.

2. Cf. Jochen Schlobach, "Franzósische Aufklârung

und deutsche Fürsten," Zeitschrijtjur historische

Forschung 17, no. 3 (1990), 327-349.

3. On Grimm see Kafker and Kafker 1988,157-163,

and references therein; still the standard monograph

is Scherer 1887.

4. See Schlobach 1980,47-63, and references therein.

5. The Correspondance littéraire was edited by Grimm

from 1753 to 1773 and continued by Jacques-Henri

Meister until 1813. See Ulla Kôlving and Jeanne

Carriat, Inventaire de la Correspondance littéraire

de Grimm et Meister, Studies on Voltaire and thé

Eighteenth Century 225-227 (Oxford, 1984); Maria

Moog-Grunewald, Jakob Heinrich Meister und die

"Correspondance littéraire." Ein Beitragzur Aufklârung

in Europa, Komparatistische Studien 13 (Berlin and

New York, 1989).

6. See Jochen Schlobach, "Literarische Korrespondenzen," Aufklàrungen. Frankreich und Deutschland im 18.

Jahrhundert, éd. Gerhard Sauer and Jochen Schlobach

(Heidelberg, 1985), 221-233.

7. See Diderot's letter to Grimm of 2 September 1772

in Diderot (ed. 1955-1970), 12:115: "Si nous revenions

un peu de bonne heure, nous nous ferions descendre

à la porte de Houdon" (the author is grateful to

Christoph Frank, Rome, for this reference).

8. See E. Charavay, "Grimm et la cour de Saxe-Gotha

(1763-1767)," Revue des documents historiques 5 (1878),

8-76.

9. See Wolfgang Ranke, éd., Europaische Literatur

am Gothaer Furstenhof[exh. cat., Universitàts- und

Forschungsbibliothek Erfurt/Gotha] (Gotha, 1999),

and references therein.

10. August Beck, Ernst der Zweite, Herzogzu SachsenGotha und Altenburg, als Pfleger und Beschützer der

Wissenschajt und Kunst (Gotha, 1854); Hans von Thummel, Beitrâge zur Geschichte des Herzogthums Altenburg

(Altenburg, 1818), 69-94.

11. See Frank, Mathies, and Poulet 20023, 213-221;

and Frank, Mathies, and Poulet 2OO2b, 475-483.

12. On Doell, who was referred to Gotha by Grimm,

see Rau 2000.

13. Doell stayed in Paris for fourteen months, from

Dec. 1771 to Jan. 1773, before studying in Italy and

return to Gotha in 1782.

14. See Appendix in the present catalogue.

15. The recently discovered, oldest known inventory of

the plaster cast collection, "Verzeichniss der im sogenannten Antiken-Saale befindlichen Abgusse, Biisten

pp." (ThStA, no. 63), written between the death of the

duke in 1804 and that of the duchess in 1827, lists

fifteen identifiable works by Houdon. On the present

collection see Schuttwolf 1995,14-16,129-157, nos.

44-65.

16. As in note n.

17. The content of Ernst's letter to Grimm is known

from the excerpt quoted by Grimm in his letter

to Galiani of 28 June 1772 (Grimm [ed. 1972], 192,

no. 127).

18. A medal celebrating Ernst's wedding in 1769 that

was never struck.

19. Grimm's letter to Ernst II from the end of May 1772

(Grimm [ed. 1972], 213-214, no. 139).

20. Grimm's letter to Galiani of 28 June 1772 (Grimm

[ed. 1972], 193, no. 127).

21. Galiani's letter to Grimm via Mme d'Epinay of

18 July 1772 (Galiani and d'Epinay [ed. 1992-1997],

3:83-85).

22. Henry Cohen, Description historique des monnaies

frappées sous l'empire romain, 8 vols. (Paris, 1880-

1892), 6:154 and 545, nos. 243-244 and 495-498,

fig. 243; The Roman Imperial Coinage, ed. Harold

Mattingly, Edward A. Sydenham, et al. (London,

1923-1981), 5.1:237, no. 298.

23. Galiani's proficiency in Latin was celebrated by

Grimm in Con. littéraire, 8:150.

24. See Mme d'Epinay's letter to Galiani of 15 Aug.

1772 reporting that Grimm "finds your medal very

beautiful"; Galiani's response of 5 Sept. 1772: "I am

very glad that [Grimm] is pleased with my medal"

(Galiani and d'Epinay [ed. 1992-1997], 3:91-93,

103); and Grimm's letter to Galiani of 28 Sept. 1772

confirming that although the wedding medal for

Ernst had never been struck owing to the prince's

modesty, the medal for his father was guaranteed

to be executed (Grimm [ed. 1972], 194, no. 128).

25. Letter of 31 Dec. 1772; published in Seznec 1959,

113-114.

26. Grimm's letters to Ernst of 9 and 16 Jan. 1773

(Grimm [ed. 1972], 218-220, nos. 142-143).

27. Listed in the handwritten inventory book

"Verzeichnis der neu angeschafften Medaillen

(1723-1794)" (FLB, Chart A 1241, fols. 223r and 2jov).

The medal is still kept in the Schlossmuseum Gotha,

Munzkabinett (inv. 4.1/1368: silver, diam. 48 mm;

and inv. 4.1/1369: bronze, diam. 47.5 mm); see

Karl Wilhelm Dassdorf, Numismatisch-historischer

Leitfaden zur Übersicht der sàchsischen Geschichte

(Dresden, 1801), 332, no. 2506; Georg Rathgeber,

"Gothaische Miinzen und Medaillen aus den Jahren

1772 bis 1837," Numismatische Zeitung 15 (July 1840),

col. 113. There is another version in the Bibliothèque

Nationale, Paris, cabinet des médailles (inv. 664:

bronze, diam. 47 mm); see Nocq 1911, no. 169,193,

pi. XV; and L. Forrer, Biographical Dictionary of

Medallists (London, 1902-1930), 6:297, no. 29.

28. Grimm's letter to Ernst of 3 Feb. 1774 (Grimm

[ed. 1972], 222, no. 145); and Galiani's to Mme

d'Epinay of 2 Apr. 1774 (Galiani and d'Epinay

[ed. 1992-1997], 4:131; see also 4:135 and 202).

29. As in note 19.

30. Carl August became duke in Sept. 1775; see Jochen

Klaufê, Carl August von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach. Fürst

und Mensch (Weimar, 1991), and references therein.

31. From 27 Feb. to 12 May 1775 (dates deduced from

documents listed in note 33).

32. Although Grimm officially reported to the

princes' mother, Duchess Anna Amalia of SaxeWeimar, about their stay, the plan to appoint him

Weimar's diplomatic representative in Paris

was not carried out (Joret 1895,530).

33. Their activities were recorded by Graf von Gortz in

his letters to his wife, published in Othmar Freiherr

von Strotzingen, "Beitrâge zur Jugendgeschichte des

Herzogs Karl August," Jahrbuch des Freien Deutschen

Hochstifts (Frankfurt, 1909), 311-371, and in his official

reports to Duchess Anna Amalia (HStA, A XVIII 41).

See Carl August's own description in his letters to

his mother, published in Alfred Bergmann, éd., Briefe

des Herzogs Carl August von Sachsen-Weimar an seine

Mutter die Herzogin Anna Amalia (Jena, 1938), 15-19,

nos. 15-20.

34. Letter from Graf von Gôrtz to his wife (Strotzingen

1909, 350 and 352).

35. "Mit Diderot war ich im Atelier eines Bildhauers

zusammen"; see K. L. von Knebel's literarischer Nachlafi

und Briejwechsel, éd. K. A. Varnhagen von Ense and

Th. Mundt (Leipzig, 1840), irXXVIII.

36. Strotzingen 1909, 354 (the author is grateful to Dr.

Ulrike Miiller-Harang, Nationalmuseum Weimar, for

this reference); see also Graf von Gortz's letter to Anna

Amalia: "Aiourd'hui ils ont vu L'attelier de M. Houdon

Sculpteur" (HStA, A XVIII 41, fol. 73v).

37. These purchases were possibly recorded by

Graf von Gortz in his lost "Compte de dépenses,"

which listed all expenses of the trip in detail; see

Charles Joret, "Rapport sur une mission scientifique

en Allemagne. Les Français à la cour de Weimar

(1775-1806)," Nouvelles archives des missions

scientifiques 9 (Paris, 1889), 7.

48
HOUDO N AN D TH E GERMA N COURT S

38. Joret 1895,523-549.

39. "Comme je sçais, Monseigneur, le goût que vous

avez pour la sculpture, j'ai prié M. Houdon de me

donner une notice des pièces les plus remarquables

de sa composition, de celles des autres artistes qui

ont été exposées au Louvre..." (BN, MS suppl. grec

943, fol. 6or; published in Charles Joret, D'Ansse de

Villoison et l'hellénism en France pendant le dernier tiers

du XVIIIe siècle [Paris, 1910], 501).

40. Friedrich Franz became duke in 1785, and grand

duke in 1815; see Jiirgen Borchert, Mecklenburgs

Grofiherzoge 1815-1918 (Schwerin, 1992), 8-29. He

and Louise were in Paris from 23 Nov. to 19 Dec. 1782

as part of a longer journey through England, France,

and Holland. The documents regarding this trip were

discovered and discussed in Mansfeld 1955,144-150,

166-171; cf. Steinmann 1911, 207-210.

41. Mansfeld 1955,148.

42. Juliana Marianne von Rantzau, "Journal, fait

par une des dames de la suite de S. A. Madame la

Princesse Frederic de Mecklembourg du voyage quelle

fit, par la Holande, l'Angleterre, la France, et l'Allemagne, en 1782 et 83" (excerpts cited in Mansfeld 1955,

nn. 113-117); and August Georg von Brandenstein,

"Voyage de Son Altesse... le Prince Frédéric François

Duc de Meclenbourg-Schwerin (Aout-Dec. 1782)

par Mr. de Brandenstein, Cavalier de sa suite" (both

in thé Landeshauptarchiv Schwerin: 2.26-1 Grofèherzogliches Kabinett 1,4280, Fürstenhaus E Friedrich

Franz I; and 2.12-1/7 Reisen mecklenburgischer

Fürsten, 340). Brandenstein's journal ends prematurely after 9 Dec. 1782.

43. "Dans le grand quaré destiné à la bibliothèque, est

l'attelier de Mr. Houdon, grand pousseur en marbre,

et autres compositions, ches le quel nous vîmes de très

belles statues. Le Pr[ince] et la Prfincesse] furent si

tentés de faire faire leurs bustes qu'ils comencerent

leurs séances dès le lendemain" (Rantzau 1782,150).

44. "Les Altesses y virent les bustes de plusieurs

personnes de leur connoissance, et furent si frappées

de leur ressemblance, qu'elles résolurent de faire

faire les leurs également" (Brandenstein 1782,134).

45. Brandenstein 1782,136 and 137.

46. "... du moins les traits étaient formés et

n'attendaient que la main du maître pour se

perfectioner" (Rantzau 1782,169 and 173).

47. On thé collection see Steinmann 1911, 207-223,

pis. 42-49; Mansfeld 1955,149-166; Schwerin 2000,

166-200.

48. Johann Christian Friedrich Wundemann,

Mecklenburg, in Hinsicht aufKultur, Kunst und

Geschmack, (Schwerin and Wismar, 1803), 2:283.

49. Slightly larger copies in plaster were given to the

court's relatives in Rudolstadt, today in the Thuringer

Landesmuseum Heidecksburg (inv. P¿6 and ?37).

50. On the collection see Seidel 1892, 55-68; on

Henry's trip to Paris see Krauel 1901.

51. Letter in GStAPK, i. HA Rep. 96, no. 108, fol. 3or-v;

quoted in German translation in Rita Hofereiter,

"Franzôsische Bilwerke in der Sammlung des Prinzen

Heinrich," in Rheinsberg 2002,442.

52. About a year after his first trip to Paris, on 8 July

1785, Henry wrote to his brother Ferdinand that an

expected delivery of several busts and medallions by

Houdon would be delayed because of the sculptor's

trip to America (GStAPK, BPH Rep. 56 II, J15, folder

7, fol. 22r); quoted in German translation by Hofreiter

in Rheinsberg 2002,443.

53. In the Weifêlackierte Kammer (white lacquered

room) on the ground floor were the terracotta busts

of the duc de Nivernais, the comtesse de Sabrán, and

the marquis de Bouille; in the Lange Kammer (long

room) on the first floor were Buffbn and Franklin; in

the Turmkabinett (tower room) were Voltaire "tête

nue," Diderot, and Rousseau. Most of these busts were

transferred to Berlin and Potsdam in the 18905 and

are lost except for the first two and Buffon. The busts

of Molière, Condorcet, and Lafayette in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin are said to have entered the collection

together with Prince Henry's library. Also formerly

in Rheinsberg were Houdon's portrait of Washington

and possibly that of the so-called Bailli de Suffren;

see Rheinsberg 2002,442-444.

54. Particularly, "Special Inventarium vom Schlotë und

Garten in Rheinsberg nebst Catalogus von Gemahlden

und Kupferstichen 1802..." and "Inventarium von den

im Schlotëe zu Rheinsberg und Cavalierhause vorhandenen Mobilien 1823" (GStAPK, I. HA, Rep. 133, nos.

190 and 783).

55. Staatliche Museen Preutëischer Kulturbesitz,

Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (inv. SZ Menzel Kat. 1555

and Kat. 1559); published in Menzel in Rheinsberg

[exh. cat., Stiftung Preutëische Schlôsser und Garten

Berlin-Brandenburg and Schloss Rheinsberg]

(Berlin, 1998), nos. 16 and 21.

56. The bust has since disappeared

(see Fischer 1786, 44).

57. "(Nouvelles de) Paris, le 17 septembre," Le Moniteur

(18 Sept. 1815), 1032.

49

"A MAN MORE JEALOU S OF GLORY THAN OF WEALTH"!

HOUDON'S DEALINGS WITH RUSSIA

Christoph Frank

Ithough she was to live for another two decades, the empress of Russia providentially

composed her own epitaph on 2 February 1778, not long before the death of her favorite

author and correspondent, François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire. This gave her enough

time, she said, to correct it. In it she aimed not only to sum up her life but also to pay homage

to the importance of literature in her political formation: "Here lies Catherine the Second, born

at Stettin on 21 April [2 May] 1729. She came to Russia in 1744 to marry Peter III. At the age of

fourteen she conceived the triple project to be pleasing to her husband, to [the empress] Elizabeth, and to the nation. She overlooked nothing to achieve this. In eighteen years of boredom and

solitude she read many books. Once she had reached the throne of Russia, she wanted only the

good and sought to procure for her subjects happiness, freedom, and property. She forgave with

ease and did not hate anyone; indulgent, happy to be alive, of a cheerful nature, with a republican soul and a good heart, she had friends; work was easy for her, company and the arts pleased

her."1 At the height of her power, no other statement by Catherine II described more succinctly

how she preferred to be seen at home, abroad, as well as eventually by posterity.

Having come to the throne in 1762 by toppling her demented husband, who died in confinement

shortly afterward, she immediately styled herself as the political and dynastic heir to Peter I, with

the aim of expanding the Russian Empire, reforming and modernizing its society and institutions, and thereby creating a European power to be taken seriously.2

 She regarded herself as

the pupil of the leading Enlightenment philosophers, foremost of Voltaire, whose books she

read as soon as they were published and appreciated for their outstanding literary quality,

polemical wit, and linguistic clarity.3 She established a vital correspondence with Voltaire, Jean

Le Rond d'Alembert, Denis Diderot, and other French intellectuals, whom she had previously

known only through their works. The most prominent of the Russian elite to exchange ideas

with the philosophes, she was eager to give her country a new, more liberal code of laws

Detail of François-Marie Arouet, called Voltaire, cat. 25

51

A
and legal system. In 1767 she formulated the Nakaz, an important set of instructions for the Legislative Commission of

Russia, based on key texts of enlightened political philosophy,

such as Montesquieu's De l'esprit des lois (1748), Cesare Beccaria's Dei deliti e delle pene (1764), and articles in the Encyclopédie

(1751-1780). She sought the advice of the philosophes in establishing regulations for new educational and welfare institutions,

including the Smolny Institute for Young Noble Women in St.

Petersburg and the Moscow Foundling Hospital. The very

month of her coronation she invited Diderot to Russia to complete the Encyclopédie after he encountered trouble with the

French king and his censors.4

Catherine II was extremely conscious of the public significance of her patronage, knowing that it was closely watched

throughout Europe, by rulers as well as intellectuals. Among

the first modern heads of state to understand the power of the

printed media, she used her relationship with the philosophes

to promote and publicize her policies. In consequence, the

impact on Russia of the philosophes and French culture in general was never stronger than in the decades leading up to the

French Revolution. Literature and the arts were influenced

most profoundly. In the realm of politics, such issues as slavery

and the arbitrary practices of the administration changed

very little, making clear that, whatever theoretical concessions

the empress may have made in her correspondence with the

philosophes, she was not willing to risk losing her power, or

even her life. Diderot's disillusionment with his imperial patron

after his return to Paris is legendary. He eventually denounced

i. Pierre-SimonBenjamin Duvivier,

Frédéric-Melchior

Grimm, charcoal,

Musée Carnavalet,

Paris.

Catherine's interest in enlightened philosophy as manipulative

myth-building, which, however successful in its time, some

historians have come to describe as "le mirage russe," the great

Russian illusion.5

From 1764 until her death in 1796, Catherine II subscribed

to the Parisian Correspondance littéraire, edited by Frédéric-Melchior Grimm (fig. i) from 1753 to 1773. This bimonthly manuscript journal covered the literary and artistic news from Paris,

at that time considered the capital of enlightened Europe. It was

sent to select members of the European nobility, including

Duchess Louise Dorothea of Saxe-Gotha, King Gustav III of

Sweden, King Stanislaw Augustus II Poniatowski of Poland,

and Archduke Leopold of Austria. Reading the Correspondance

littéraire and other diplomatic and literary reports, Catherine II

could justifiably regard herself as among the best informed of

her time with respect to cultural developments in Paris. And

Grimm, a native of Regensburg in south Germany and a friend

of Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, made an exceptional

career for himself providing news of Paris to the courts on the

northern and eastern periphery of Europe: "after all, it is an

advantage of no little consideration to have the right to talk twice

a month to all the great and enlightened princes of Europe."

The Correspondance littéraire also offered detailed commentary

on the Salon exhibitions, with Diderot as the principal critic

0

from 1759 to 1781. It thus exerted significant influence on the

constitution of art collections outside France, particularly in

Russia. In March 1773, however, Grimm passed on the laborious and time-consuming task of editing the journal to JacquesHenri Meister of Zurich, who assured its continued appearance

until 1814. Grimm's decision was very likely prompted by his

invitation from Catherine II to become her principal literary

and artistic advisor in Paris. The empress and her agent left

behind an extraordinary correspondence that extensively

documents the mechanics and intentions of her cultural and

9

artistic patronage.

The 17705 and early 17805 in St. Petersburg marked a period

of intense efforts to build art collections superior to any in western Europe. This emerging interest in the visual arts on a

national level supported a comprehensive cultural publicity campaign, instigated and partly directed by the Paris philosophes

with the aim of proving to the civilized world the high level of

sophistication the Russian Empire had attained under the rule

of the enlightened empress. Sometimes to the envy and sometimes to the derision of the keenly media-conscious audiences

of eighteenth-century Europe, this was closely monitored abroad.

52
" A MA N MOR E JEALOU S O F GLOR Y THA N O F WEALTH "

2. Houdon, Seated Voltaire, ijSi, marble., The State Hermitage Museum,

St. Petersburg.

3. Louis-Claude Vassé ajter Edme Bouchardon, reduced version of the

Equestrian Monument of Louis XV, 1759-1763, bronze, Musée du

Louvre, Paris.

Nearly all of the sculptures by Houdon that are associated

with Russia reached St. Petersburg during the sculptor's lifetime, and they constitute some of the most remarkable works

in his oeuvre, including the Seated Voltaire (fig. 2) and a marble

Diana (sold in 1930 by the Soviet government to Calouste Gulbenkian, now in Lisbon). It has been noted that Catherine's

relationships with contemporary artists have not been studied

as thoroughly as they deserve—with the possible exception of

Etienne-Maurice Falconet, with whom she corresponded at a

high philosophical and artistic level throughout his stay in St.

Petersburg (1766-1778); or her one-time favorite draftsman

Charles-Louis Clérisseau, who procured for her the views of

Rome with which she decorated her personal quarters at the

Winter Palace and at her country residence at Tsarskoye Sel11o.

The wealth of her personal correspondence and the diplomatic

dispatches of the period testify to considerable knowledge on

the part of the empress and her advisors, through whose offices

such artists as Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Anton Raphael Mengs, or

Joshua Reynolds were either commissioned to do works for

Russia or enticed to go there. Whether this stemmed from a

genuine interest in the arts or from strategic and propagandistic reasoning remains to be determined.

There are indications that in September 1777 Diderot and

his friend Prince Aleksandr Mikhailovich Golitsyn, formerly

Russian ambassador to France, tried to convince the director

of the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Ivan Ivanovich

Betskoi, to nominate Houdon as professor of sculpture at the

academy after the departure of Nicolas-François Gillet. In a

recently discovered letter of March 1778, Golitsyn wrote to Diderot

expressing his regret that their interventions had not led to

the appointment: "Undoubtedly, if one were in need of a

capable sculptor in Russia, one could hardly find better than in

the person of M. Houdon, his merit being already known

through several beautiful works." Nonetheless, it must be

emphasized that Houdon counted his Russian patrons and the

empress in particular among his most important clients. He

worked on Russian commissions from 1773 to 1783 and again in

1814, when he carved the portrait bust of Emperor Alexander I

(untraced), thought to be his last work, after which he disappeared from the art world in Paris. Catherine commissioned

53
from Houdon a portrait bust of Voltaire in 1778 (cat. 25), the

Seated Voltaire soon thereafter, and a bust of her second most

favored author, the naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte

de Buífon, in 1781 (see cat. 28); in 1783-1784 she acquired

the full-scale marble Diana that had been done for Duke Ernst

II of Saxe-Gotha (see cat. 35). Yet one of the great ambitions of

Houdon's life remained unfulfilled: he had desired to create

equestrian statues that would rival those by Edme Bouchardon

(unveiled in Paris in 1763; see fig. 3) and Falconet (unveiled in

St. Petersburg in 1782; see fig. 6).14

Presumably Houdon's first work for a Russian patron was

a marble portrait bust of Catherine II wearing the chain of the

Order of Saint Andrew and a kokoshnik, the national headdress

(fig. 4). The artist, never having seen the empress in person,

had to rely on portrait drawings and miniatures, which, in addition to his following Roman imperial prototypes, may account

for the detached and overall uninspired quality of this work.16

The commission came from Count Aleksandr Sergeevich

Stroganov, a highly cultivated member of the Russian aristocracy. Stroganov had spent much of his youth in western Europe,

where he had come under the influence of the philosophes and

freemasonry; he later joined Voltaire and Houdon as a member

of the Loge des Neuf Soeurs—a masonic lodge dedicated to the

Nine Muses and hence to the arts—to which many prominent

artists and writers belonged. In 1771, after a brief sojourn in

Geneva, Stroganov returned to Paris, where he remained until

1778-1779; he moved back to St. Petersburg only to return

again to Paris in 1781, staying until 1783. He was thus a witness

and participant during some of the most active years of the Paris

art scene and built one of the largest private collections in Russia at that time. Back in St. Petersburg, he installed his collection in the ostentatious family palace, situated on Nevski

Prospect and designed by Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli for

Stroganov's father, Sergei Grigorievich. This is where sometime around 1790 a French traveler, Portia de Piles, saw two

more busts commissioned from Houdon, one of Diderot and

the other of Voltaire18.

It has been argued that Stroganov's commissions of the bust

of Catherine II and, to some extent, those of Diderot and Voltaire

should be read as carefully calculated acquisitions by a prominent Russian living in Paris, who was clearly aware that his

actions were scrutinized not only by the Parisian public but by

the empress, who received regular dispatches about the con19

duct of her envoys. This reading is supported by the fact that

the date of the bust of Diderot coincides with the latter's jour4. Houdon, Bust of

Catherine II, 1773,

marble, The State

Hermitage Museum,

St. Petersburg.

ney to St. Petersburg in 1773, and the Voltaire bust was ordered

at the same moment the empress was looking for one herself.

Moreover, the Stroganov Voltaire corresponds closely to one of

the two busts that Catherine received from Houdon in the summer of 1778 (cat. 23): the one in which the philosopher is rendered naturally, bare-headed and without drapery—in some

ways the purest and most classically restrained version—which

Catherine, in her letters to Grimm, repeatedly claimed to prefer to all the other renderings.20

The widespread awareness of these busts, and that of the

empress in particular, can be demonstrated by the extensive

coverage they received in reviews of the Salons; and Stroganov's

decision to exhibit the works publicly further suggests that he

was indeed trying to make an impression on his sovereign with

the commissions. Pidansat de Mairobert, who had assumed

responsibility for Bachaumont's Mémoires secrets, a periodical

that competed with Grimm's Correspondance littéraire, wrote in

his criticism of the Salon of 1773: "The same artist [Houdon]

has also exhibited the bust of the empress of Russia. This beautiful head, stronger than the ordinary form, appears to announce

that nature has made an effort to conceive the immortal sovereign that she represents." The obvious flattery was directed

toward the person depicted rather than the sculptor, though

Houdon received praise at the same Salon for another important Russian commission, the model of the funerary monument for field marshal Mikhail Mikhailovich Golitsyn (cat. 5722).

54
"A MA N MOR E JEALOU S O F GLOR Y THA N O F WEALTH "

By the late 17708 Houdoris rendering of Catherine II, which

some felt was lacking in expressiveness, had become nonetheless one of her official portraits, as can be deduced from the

proliferation of copies in plaster. Clérisseau in 1779 had wanted

to place one copy on an "altar of gratitude" as part of a public

exhibition of his drawings, just before shipping them to St.

Petersburg:

This devil Clérisseau promenades around everywhere,

his head twice as big as before. "So, the Empress of Russia has made him prodigiously rich?" asks trie comte

d'Angiviller, director of the Bâtiments du Roi, that is to

say, the Betskoi of this country. "In fact, so rich," replies

Clérisseau to him, "that it is no longer in your power to

do me any good." Note that the court never gave him

any encouragement. From there he goes to Houdoris

studio and commissions from him the bust of Your

Imperial Majesty. "Make me the bust of the Empress,

so that it can be placed in my home on the altar of gratitude; all those who come to me must know that everything I have I owe to her.23"

Clérisseau's conscious mise-en-scène set a new standard for

fawning, which was imitated a few weeks later by the poet and

dramatist Michel-Jean Sedaine, who received a pension from

Catherine in recognition of his talent, well before the French

king had been inclined to do so: Sedaine ordered "one of the

portraits of Your Majesty... to be placed at his house, as Clérisseau had commissioned his bust from Houdon. Thus finally

there are two of them placed at the Louvre, as Sedaine and

Clérisseau reside there because of their academic positions. I do

not despair to see the portraits der wohltàtigen Kaiserin [of the

charitable empress] multiplied in the Louvre, in the Capitol, or

anywhere there are rewards to bestow on real and modest

24

merit." Obviously Catherine's liberal patronage was meant to

impress where the monarchs of the civilized West might fail.

Houdoris marble bust of the empress, before leaving Paris

with Stroganov in 1783, was put to work one more time during

the visit of Catherine's son Paul and his second wife, Maria

Fedorovna, in 1782. Traveling incognito as the "comte and

comtesse du Nord" at the insistence of the empress, the royal

couple undertook what was in effect a Grand Tour through several European countries, supposedly with the aim of establishing closer ties with neighboring powers, the Habsburgs in

particular. Catherine made sure that her estranged son would

not interfere in her politics, however, by sending him to all the

great sites with the means to buy luxury goods and works of

art on a lavish scale for his summer residence at Pavlovsk. On

2 June 1782 the couple visited the Bibliothèque du Roi and

Houdoris studio, where they saw not only the almost finished

Seated Voltaire and the bust of Buffon, both commissioned by

Catherine, but also the bust of the empress herself, probably

moved there for the occasion from Stroganov's Paris residence

at the prompting of Grimm and Stroganov. Charles-François

de Lubersac de Livron, a poet and self-styled specialist in royal

monuments, described the visit: "Their Imperial Highnesses,

who at this moment seem to do themselves honor by showing

no interest in anything but the sciences, the arts, and the talents, come here and recognize in the same instant, but not without surprise, the marble bust of their August Mother. Flattering

and deserved eulogies emerged immediately from the mouths

of their graces, becoming for the artist present [Houdon] at that

moment an honorable reward, befitting his talents."26

Lubersac de Livroris publication of 1782 included the

description of a projected public monument to the glory of the

enlightened empress, which the author seems to have sent to

Catherine in manuscript form as early as August 1778, according to a surviving presentation copy at the National Library of

Russia in St. Petersburg. The second part of the book focused

on the journey of the "comte and comtesse du Nord," as if pursued solely to serve the interests of the state, and it cites the

examples of other "enlightened" rulers such as Peter the Great,

Gustav III of Sweden, Christian VII of Denmark, and Joseph II

of Austria. Yet despite the dedication to Paul, first in the imperial line of succession, the extravagant publication gives more

than one indication that Catherine is the real subject of its panegyric discourses. For example, Lubersac had commissioned

for the frontispiece an engraving of Houdoris bust of the

empress shown in profile (fig. 5), with the highly potent inscription: "Catherine IL Impératrice des Russies. Mère de ses peuples. Née le 2 May 1729." The title mater patriae, or "Mother of

the Fatherland," had been officially offered to the empress on

12 August 1767 by the deputies of the Legislative Commission

28

gathered in Moscow to write the new code of laws. She

accepted this title in recognition of her divine right to power,

on the basis of which, it was understood, her people had been

entrusted to her. Moreover, this print, by Charles-Etienne

Gaucher, one of the leading engravers in Paris, was executed

after a drawing by Greuze, one of Catherine's favorite artists;

another telling inscription emphasized that Greuze had drawn

55
5. Charles-Etienne Gaucher, Catherine II, 1782, engraving after drawing by

Jean-Baptiste Greuze of bust by Houdon, BNEst.

the bust after the original and implied that this had happened

under the guidance of the sculptor himself: "Greuze del. sub

29

Stat. Houdon." This may represent the artistic network that

was trying to persuade the empress to commission her own

monument; the visits by her son and his wife to the studios of

Greuze and Houdon were particularly stressed in a separate

30

note to Meister's account in the Correspondance littéraire.

According to Lubersac de Livron's program, the monument

would be erected in the center of St. Petersburg, between the

River Neva and the Winter Palace, the latter being the official seat

of government. A statue of the empress in the guise of the sea

goddess Thetis, leader of the Nereides who had the gift of

prophecy, would stand in a temple surrounded by a moat that

would prevent anyone from coming near her. The temple would

be situated at the center of a giant semicircular Doric colonnade, which would eventually be completed with colossal images

of illustrious Russians, each placed on a high pedestal. The temple would be decorated with allegorical representations of the

virtues, talents, and achievements of the sovereign. The key element in this rather baroque composition was the proposed

statue of the empress: "Catherine II clothed in her imperial

garb, the crown on her head, holding the imperial sceptre in

her right hand, will have a retinue of various genii representing

the great worthies of the empire.... this statue of the Empress

made of white marble, of a stature larger than life, will appear

standing, supported by Minerva who will accompany her;

approaching with a majestic and proud air from the side of the

port where her fleet lies will be Neptune, sovereign of the sea,

aboard his chariot and landing at the base of the temple."

The image was thus intended to commemorate Catherine's

directions to the commission drawing up the new law code for

Russia in 1767 as well as her military exploits at sea —that is,

Alexei Orlov's victory over the Turks at Chesme in 1770. It is

probably not a coincidence that such a sculptural program was

proposed to Catherine at the moment Falconet's unrivaled chefd'oeuvre, the equestrian statue of Peter the Great, was being

installed in front of the Russian senate building in August 1782

(fig. 6). Famous for its daring composition and the ingenious

simplicity of its inscription, "Perro Primo / Catharina Secunda,"

this was a monument that celebrated the person who was

represented as much as the person who had commissioned and

dedicated it. Catherine's contemporaries understood this incongruity. The English envoy to Russia, Sir James Harris, wrote

only two days after the unveiling: "I could not avoid, during this

ceremony, reflecting how impossible it was that any successor

of Her Imperial Majesty who might, in some future day, erect

a statue in commemoration of Her great Actions, ever should

be so much superior to Her, as she Herself is superior to Peter

the Great, both in the art of governing, and in that of making

Her People respected and happy."

The idea of a monument to Catherine II was not new.

Voltaire had written to Falconet on 17 June 1772: "Your quill

gives me a very good idea of your chisel. I see ingenuity in

everything you write, and I judge that this genius will breathe

life into the statue of Peter the Great. If I were not an octogenarian, and if I were in good health, I would go to see this

masterpiece. But this would be on the condition that I would

find a statue of Catherine the Second in front of that of Peter

the First." Voltaire's letter shows that the concept of a fullscale statue dedicated to Catherine II, juxtaposed with Falconet's equestrian statue of Peter I, had been a subject of

56
" A MA N MOR E JEALOU S O F GLOR Y THA N O F WEALTH "

discussion among the philosophes for some time. Falconet

himself had suggested such a monument to the empress as

early as 1768, but it never got further than a model, which

appears to have been lost: "I have made a sketch which I will

not show to anyone until Your Majesty shall have seen it.

Catherine the Second gives the laws to her Empire. She deigns to

lower her sceptre to suggest to her citizens the means to render them

happier. If this simple idea is not suitable, I do not know of

anything that might be more so, or more glorious." Despite

these early initiatives and the endorsement of Lubersac de

Livron's project of 1778 -1782 by prominent philosophes like

the comte de Buffon, the empress could not be convinced to

commission her own monument. The last and presumably

most forceful proposal, clearly stating that the assignment

should be given to no one but Houdon, was made by Grimm,

Catherine's confidant in literary and artistic matters.

An unpublished letter of June 1785 from Grimm to Catherine reveals the extent and complexity of the situation.:

It is in every way suitable and appropriate that at the

moment the Duke of Saxe-Gotha sees a plaster of the

Hercules Farnese issued from the Imperial Academy

[of Fine Arts] arrive in his quarters, they will send me

a marble of the Hyperborean Minerva, who, despite

having had the same father, was a lady of a completely

different rock than the lord Hercules, courageous knight

that he was. In truth I would have preferred to own [one]

from the chisel of Houdon rather than from anyone

else; but as one is not a lady of such extraction, without

suffering from terrible disadvantages in one's character,

I recognize that I lose hope in my influence to make her

understand that the first Praxiteles or Phidias of this century would not be good enough to conserve her traits to

the admiration and veneration of the loyal of all ages....

6. Etienne-Maurice Falconet, Equestrian Monument of Peter the Great,

1766-1782, bronze, Senate Square, St. Petersburg.

Houdon will spend four or five months in America to do

the portrait of Washington, then return to France to execute his statue for the United States. Is it not deplorable

that an emerging republic, which has hardly reached the

age of puberty that the Adolescent Hercules by Shchedrin

has already passed, whose means are in consequence

so new and so limited, could demonstrate its gratitude

toward the greatest of its citizens, and that it should not

be permissible to the senate of Russia to consecrate its

own [gratitude] in a similar monument for its first citizen

[the empress], in recognition of twenty-three years of

favors and services? One shrugs one's shoulders when

one thinks of it with a clear head. Surely Houdon would

not be any more ill going to Russia than crossing the sea

to look for Washington on his estates in Virginia, and

one would find enough strength and courage to undertake the two most [beautiful] monuments, when a long

succession of centuries will not produce anything comparable. But set yourself to preach to the deaf, says the

Apostle Saint Paul to the Thessalonians, and you will

have your rewards. Shchedrin thus makes the bust of

Minerva through the [mediation of the] people of Grimm,

who desire passionately for the people of Petersburg her

[Catherine's] statue by Houdon, once he comes back from

America; that will be in any case undone and badly paid,

one draws from that whatever one can37.

57
In 1782 Grimm had written Catherine II to secure a number of commissions for Feodosy Fedorovich Shchedrin, and by

1785 he was expressing the desire to own a bust of the empress

by that artist for himself, which he would place on the altar of

an imaginary cathedral dedicated to Catherine in the imaginary

38

town of "Grimma." Despite his efforts to promote Shchedrin's

39

work, it is obvious that Grimm's primary goal was to convince

Catherine to commission her statue from Houdon. He applied

his considerable argumentative skills to move the empress in

that direction, not least by comparing their initiative to that of

the Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, whose members had invited Houdon to come to America to create a fullscale statue of George Washington (cat. 47, fig. 3). Houdon had

accepted this project on the understanding that he would receive

another, more prestigious commission for an equestrian statue

of Washington to be placed at the center of the as-yet-unbuilt

40

capital of the United States.

In 1784 Thomas Jefferson, then ambassador to France and

a friend of Grimm, had recommended Houdon, whom he

considered "the first statuary in the world," to execute the statue

for Richmond. But two days before Jefferson officially informed

the Virginia delegates on 12 July 1785 that Houdon would

41

come to America, he had written to Washington that the artist

had had to decline an offer from the empress of Russia in order

to accept their commission; this offer presumably amounted

to nothing more than an invitation to work on a statue to be

placed opposite the monument of Peter the Great: "He has had

difficulty to withdraw himself from an order of the Empress of

Russia, a difficulty however which arose from a desire to shew

her respect, but which never gave him a moment's hesitation

about his present voyage which he considers as promising the

42

brightest chapter of his history."

The correspondence suggests that Houdon tried to use his

health as a pretext to turn down Catherine's monument in

favor of Washington's. As Grimm acrimoniously hinted in his

letter of June 1785, the artist apparently claimed to be too ill to

travel to Russia but was fit enough to cross the Atlantic Ocean;

he thought that Houdon suffered from delusions about the

unlimited possibilities that should present themselves to him

in the New World. According to Grimm, not even the meager

pay he could expect there had discouraged the artist. Houdon,

who strongly preferred to work from life (especially after

his bust of Catherine II in 1773), spent the first two weeks of

October 1785 at Mount Vernon in Virginia, making a clay bust

of Washington's head and taking measurements for the full

figure, then returned to Paris to work on it over the following

decade. Yet, famously, despite Houdon's insistence that he could

cast an equestrian statue at relatively little expense, as he still

possessed the furnaces and molds that had been used for

Bouchardon's statue of Louis XV, nothing came of the Washington project, nor indeed of Catherine's.

According to his letter to Catherine in June 1785, Grimm

was well informed of all the details, to the point of spelling out

what price might entice Houdon to come to Russia after all. It

is most likely that Grimm received this information from none

other than Thomas Jefferson, with whom he interacted nearly

every day in the same intellectual and diplomatic circles of Paris.

But although the network that operated behind the scenes can

be largely reconstructed, Houdon left no reliable evidence of

his own thoughts and intentions. It seems unlikely that he

would have relinquished a contract with Russia because of

republican sympathies; he had worked primarily for the European nobility up to this point in his career. In the end, however,

Houdon may have simply preferred to be acknowledged as

the first sculptor in America capable of producing such a

statue rather than the second in Russia, where such undertakings could end rather badly, as demonstrated by Falconet's

abrupt departure from St. Petersburg in 1778 after the failed

first cast of his equestrian monument.

Yet presumably following ancient and humanistic topoi,

according to which human beings are not meant to commission or even consecrate a monument to themselves during their

own lifetimes, the empress informed her agent in response to

his initiative: "As regards those gentlemen from America, I

believe them to be taken to talk senselessly; the old and the

young republics of this century are inclined toward these kinds

of things. As far as my statue is concerned, it will not exist in

my lifetime.44"

58
"A MA N MOR E JEALOU S O F GLOR Y THA N O F WEALT H"

The title of this essay derives from a recently discovered letter from Diderot to Aleksandr Mikhailovich

Golitsyn, 16 May 1777, published in Karp 1998,77-79,

no. 20. The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and

the Bibliotheca Hertziana-Max-Planck-Institut fur

Kunstgeschichte (Rome); also the invitation of Sergei

Karp, Institute of Universal History of the Russian

Academy of Sciences (Moscow), and Georges Dulac,

Université Paul-Valéry (Montpellier), to contribute

to the new edition of the correspondence of FrédéricMelchior Grimm and Catherine II. In view of the

persistence of political mirages, Russian and other,

this contribution is dedicated to Paul Frank (Breitnau).

1. In letter of 2 Feb. 1778 to Grimm (SIRIO 1878,

77 n. i). All translations from French are the author's

own. Catherine II (1729-1796), of German origin,

was the daughter of Prince Christian August of

Anhalt-Zerbst and Johanna, princess of HolsteinGottorp, whose brother became king of Sweden in

1751. Selected as bride for her second cousin Karl

Peter Ulrich of Holstein-Gottorp, heir of the childless

Empress Elizabeth of Russia, she was married on 21

August 1745. With no legitimate claim to the Russian

throne, she overthrew her husband just six months

after his accession as Peter III to rule in her own right.

The two ciphers often given for Russian dates

relate to the coexistence of the Julian calendar (widely

applied in Orthodoxy) and the Gregorian calendar

(adopted by Pope Paul III in 1582). In the eighteenth

century the difference amounted to eleven days.

2. For a survey of the period in English see Isabel de

Madariaga, Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great,

2nd ed. (London, 2002).

3. The most recent monographic analysis of FrancoRussian cultural relations under Catherine II

(in Russian) is Karp 1998; for the wider eighteenthcentury context see the excellent catalogue Paris 19863;

and Dulac 1997, 961-967.

4. Maurice Tourneux, Diderot et Catherine II (Paris,

1899; reprint, Geneva, 1970).

5. Le Mirage russe au XVIIle siècle, ed. Sergei Karp

and Larry Wolff, Publications du Centre international

d'étude du XVIIIe siècle, vol. 10 (Ferney-Voltaire,

2001).

6. Jochen Schlobach, "Diderot und Grimms Correspondance littéraire," in Diderot und die Aufklàrung, ed.

Herbert Dieckmann, Wolfenbutteler Forschungen 10

(Munich, 1980), 50.

7. Grimm to Caroline of Hesse-Darmstadt, 20 July 1771

(Schlobach 1972, no. 85,138). See also Scherer 1887;

and Schlobach 1997, 274-277.

8. Seznec and Adhémar 1957-1967; Paris 1984-1985;

and Jacques Chouillet, "Grimm critique d'art. Le Salon

de 1757," in La Correspondance littéraire de Grimm

et de Meister (1754-1813), colloquium at Saarbrücken,

22-24

 Fet>-1974» éd. B. Bray, J. Schlobach, and

J. Varloot (París, 1976), 191-199.

9. See SIRIO 1878; and SIRIO 1885. See also Sergei

Karp and Sergei Iskul, "Les Lettres inédites de Grimm

à Catherine II," Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie, no. 10 (Apr. 1991), 41-55; and Sergei Karp,

"Der Briefwechsel Friedrich Melchior Grimms mit

Katharina II," Europa in der Fruhen Neuzeit. Festschrift

far Gunter Mühlpfordt, ed. Erich Donnert (Weimar,

Cologne, and Vienna, 1997), 3:151-176.

10. For surveys based on research prior to the October

Revolution see V. Vereshchagin, "Proizvedeniya

Gudona v' Rossiiy," Starye Gody (June 1908), 333- 341;

Réau 1914; Réau 1917; and Réau 19243,189-196.

11. See Glaus Scharf, Katharina IL, Deutschland und die

Deutschen (Mainz, 1996), 186; with regard to Catherine's relationship with contemporary artists see SIRIO

1876 and Charles-Louis Clérisseau (1721-1820). Dessins

du musée de l'Ermitage Saint-Pétersbourg [exh. cat.,

Musée du Louvre] (Paris, 1995). See also Martin Postle,

"Sir Joshua Reynolds and thé Court of Catherine thé

Great," British Art Treasures from Russian Imperial

Collections in the Hermitage, ed. Brian Allan and Larissa

Dukelskaya (New Haven and London, 1996), 56-67;

and Christoph Frank, "'Plus il y en aura, mieux ce

sera' —Caterina II di Russia e Anton Raphael Mengs.

Sul ruólo degli agenti 'cesarei' Grimm e Reiffenstein,"

Mengs. La Scoperta del Neoclassico, ed. Steffi Roettgen

[exh. cat., Palazzo Zabarella] (Padua, 2001), 86-95.

12. Aleksandr Mikhailovich Golitsyn to Diderot, 12 [23]

March 1778; Moscow, RGADA, Fonds 1263, opis i, no.

12433, fols. 10-n; Karp 1998, 96-97, and 92 n. i.

13. Réau 1914, 51; Réau 19243,196; Réau 1964,

1:400-401.

14. See Houdon's "Tsblesu de ce qu'on[t] coûté

plusieurs statues en bronze et le nom des artistes qui

les ont exécutées," in Chinard 1930,15-16; and 3n

unpublished note in English about the equestrian

statue by Falconet in his estate papers (BMV, F 946,

no. 46).

15. Exhibited at thé Salon of 1773, no. 231.

16. See Frankfurt 1999-2000, 252-254, no. 147.

17. See Hecht 1994, 28-35;

 anc^ Réau 1964,

1:396-397.

18. Portia de Piles 1796, 3:42. These two busts are now

at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The

Diderot is signed and dated 1773 (inv. 1974.291); the

Voltaire is signed and dated 1778 (inv. 1972.61). Both

were in the legendary Stroganov sale at the Rudolph

Lepke suction house: Sammlung Stroganojf Leningrad

(Berlin, 1931), 222-225, nos. 224-225, ill.

19. Hecht 1994, 31.

20. SIRIO 1878,104,107-108.

21. Bachaumont 1780-1789,13:148, letter of 21 Sept.

1773.

22. Bachaumont 1780-1789,13:147-148.

23. Grimm to Catherine, Paris, 6 [17] Sept. 1779

(SIRIO 1885, 61) [quotation marks sdded to set off

dialogue]. One contemporary copy of the bust in

plaster, acquired from the artist by the prince of

Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1782, has survived at the

Staatliches Museum, Schwerin (inv. Pi. 277); see

Schwerin 2000,170-171, no. i.

24. Grimm to Catherine, 27 Oct. [7 Nov.] 1779 (SIRIO

1885,73).

25. See A. N. Guzanov, "The Grand Tour of the Comte

and the Comtesse du Nord," in Pavlovsk: The Palace

and the Park, ed. Emmanuel Ducamp (Psris, 1993),

17-38; also Réau 19243, 225-256.

26. Lubersac de Livron, Premier discours sur l'utilité

et les avantages que les princes peuvent retirer de leurs

voyages (St. Petersburg and Psris, 1782), 78 (copy

st BN, R. 6334). Luberssc seems to have accompanied

the royal couple throughout their stay in Psris. See

also Alexsndre Jscques Louis Du Coudray, Le Comte

et la Comtesse du Nord. Anecdote russe (Psris, 1782), 76.

The imperial visit led to two more commissions from

Houdon: for marble busts of Ivsn Petrovich Ssltykov,

signed and dsted 1783 (The Stste Hermitsge Museum,

St. Petersburg; inv. H. ck. 1441); snd his son Nicolsi

Ivsnovich (untrsced); see Psris 19863, 259, no. 398.

27. See MS Erm. fr. 116, esp. fols. 44r-48v. Luberssc

de Livron signed and dsted the dedication "L'abbe Cte

de Luberssc, le 22 aoust 1778." The description of the

monument is identical with that published four years

later in Lubersac 1782, 43-48. The volume does not

contain any illustration of the projected monument.

The author would like to thank Natalia Yelagina,

curator of manuscripts, National Library of Russia,

for her gracious assistance.

28. See Madariaga 1982,139-163. The epithets "great"

and "most wise" were already attached to her name,

although Catherine did not like the former.

29. The ambiguity derives from the fact that the abbreviation cannot be essily expsnded: thus "Stst." could

refer to the bust (statua) or the sculptor (statuarius).

30. Com littéraire, 13:146.

31. Luberssc 1782,43-48.

32. Lubersac 1782,46-47.

33. Communicstion to Lord Grsntham, 9 [20] Aug.

1782 (London, Public Record Office, FO 65/8, n.p.).

34. BN, MS n.a.fr. 24.983, fols. 332-333 (Bestermann

D 17784). The famous letter concluded with the words:

"Vous faites, Monsieur, beaucoup d'honneur à notre

nation dans les païs étrangers; nous en avions besoin."

35. Fslconet to Cstherine II, 13 June 1768 (RGADA,

Fonds 5, no. 143, fol. 28); first published by Polotsov

in SIRIO 1876, 42-43, no. 24.

59
36. Lubersac de Livron had sent his description as

well as a drawing to Buffon, who replied on 15 April

1782 that it had given him the greatest pleasure.

Buffon's letter was included in the prospectus of

Lubersac 1782, iii.

37. Archives of the St. Petersburg branch of the

Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy

of Sciences, Fonds 203, opis i, no. 151, fols. 9r-ior.

The complete text of these letters will be published

for the first time in the forthcoming volume of

correspondence compiled and edited by Sergei Karp,

Georges Dulac, and the present author.

38. See SIRIO 1878, 258, 260-261, 262-263, 265,

284, 297, 332, 339, 371, 405; SIRIO 1885, 256-257,

267, 281, 283, 313, 335, 342. The cathedral idea is

expressed in Grimm's letter to Catherine of 19 [30]

June 1785 (see preceding note). What has become

of the bust, as indeed of Grimm's art collection,

remains unknown.

39. Shchedrin was at the time an impecunious

Russian pensionnaire at the Academy of Fine Arts

in St. Petersburg. After a brief period in Rome

(1773-1774), he had worked for nearly ten years

in the Paris studio of Christophe-Gabriel Allegrain

before returning to Russia in 1785. See A. Kaganovich,

Feodosy Feodorovich Shchedrin (Moscow, 1953); and

Elena F. Petinova, F. F. Shchedrin (Leningrad, 1977).

40. See David Bindman, "King of the New Republic:

Houdon's equestrian monument to George Washington," paper given at the conference on "Royal Monuments and Urban Public Space in Eighteenth-Century

Europe," Henry-Moore-Institute, Leeds, 8-9 Mar.

2002 (forthcoming).

41. George Washington Papers, Library of Congress,

Washington, DC, ser. 4, general correspondence,

1697-1799; see Chinard 1930, 5,13-15.

42. Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress,

Washington, DC, ser. i, general correspondence,

1651-1827, Jefferson to Washington, 10 July 1785;

see Chinard 1930,10-11.

43. Grimm here mocks Houdon's elevated rhetoric in

connection with his American commissions, which

seems to have antagonized the Paris art community.

In a review of the 1785 Salon in the Correspondance

littéraire (14:297), presumably written by Meister

under the direct influence of Grimm, it is claimed

that Houdon's absence served as a pretext to exclude

most of his works from the exhibition: "One has

thought to owe this all too small consolation to rivals

depressed by the glory conveyed upon him [Houdon]

by being called to consecrate for future centuries the

august image of the hero of America and of liberty."

44. Catherine II to Grimm, 21 Sept. 1785 (SIRIO

1878, 362). It is not entirely clear whether she meant

that she did not want a monument as a matter of

principle or that she simply could not get one. See

also Christoph Frank, "Das Denkmal des Grolsen

Kurfürsten von Andreas Schluter im Spiegel seiner

ôffentlichen Rezeption," Preufien 1701. Eine europaische Geschichte [exh. cat., Schloss Charlottenburg]

(Berlin, 2001), 2:341-352. There were full-scale statues

of the empress commissioned and erected in her own

lifetime, although not by her personally. Prince Grigory

Aleksandrovich Potemkin commission at least two,

both representing her as a lawgiver: one from Wilhelm

Christian Meyer in 1782, erected in Ekaterinoslav in

1846 (melted down during the German occupation

in 1941), and one from Fedot Ivanovich Shubin in

1789-1790 (Russian Museum, St. Petersburg). See

Sibylle Badstubner-Grôger, "Die Zeichnung eines

Standbildes von Katharina II. und das Schicksal

eines Denkmals —Der Beginn einer Untersuchung,"

Zeitschriji des Deutschen Vereinsjur Kunstwissenschaft 43,

pt. 2 (1989), 21-30; Sibylle Badstubner-Grôger, "Ein

Denkmal Katharinas der GroSen fur Ekaterinoslav,."

Russische Aufklàrungsrezeption im Kontext ojfizieller

Bildungskonzepte (1700-1825), ed. G. Lehmann-Carli,

et al. (Berlin, 2001), 3-17; Sergei Konstantinovich

Isakov, Fedot Shubin (Moscow, 1938); and Olga

Pavlovna Lazareva, Russkiy skul'ptor Fedot Shubin

(Moscow, 1965).

60
Catalogue

L EcorCilé (Figure of a Flayed Man, Right Arm Extended Horizontally)

Dated 1767

White plaster with self-base

H. (with base) 181 cm (base: H. 8.5 cm, W. 59 cm)

Inscribed on tree trunk: houdon /f. Romee / 2767.

Académie de France, Rome (inv. 319)

Houdon's figure of an Ecorché is one of his earliest, most

famous, and most widely reproduced works. The twenty-fiveyear-old sculptor first executed a life-size figure of a flayed man

as a preparatory study for his statue of Saint John the Baptist

(cat. 3), commissioned in 1766 by Dom André Le Masson, the

French procureur general of the Carthusian order of friars in

Rome for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. He was already

deeply interested in the study of human anatomy when he

received the commission. One of his friends, the German artist

Johann Christian von Mannlich, who was a visiting pensionnaire

at the Académie de France in Rome, recounts in his memoirs:

"At dawn, my neighbor and friend Houdon came to get me

to go to Saint-Louis des Français where M. Séguier, professor

of surgery, gave us a lesson in anatomy on cadavers for which

the king paid. We were the only people from the academy to

follow this course, and we profited all the more for it." Mannlich

goes on to say that Houdon was doing a statue of Saint John

the Baptist at this time and that he had "the idea to do the model

in day... first as an écorché, and every day he used our [anatomy]

lesson and my drawings in order to study the system of muscles thoroughly. This work had the complete approval of

M. Séguier, who often came to see it, making observations and

criticisms. It also had [the approval] of all the artists and amateurs who urged Houdon to have a mold made of his écorché

before he transformed it into a Saint John, and they judged it to

be the best anatomical statue ever to have been created." That

the Ecorché was immediately recognized as an important work

of art in its own right and one that would be useful for study

in art academies is echoed by Charles Natoire, director of

the Académie de France in Rome, in a letter of early 1767. The

sculpture quickly became a key work in the academy's plaster

collection. By 1775 Vien, who succeeded Natoire as director of

the academy, included as part of the rules he wrote for the

students' curriculum, "One will learn anatomy from the study

of the acorche that M. Houdon made for the academy.4"

Already in this youthful work several of the dominant characteristics of Houdon's mature style are evident. His preoccupation with the accurate observation and depiction of the bones

and muscles as well as the exterior surface of the human body

eventually led him to use life and death masks for his closely

observed portraits. At the same time, he transformed his studies of stiff, dissected corpses into an animated, graceful figure

of classical proportions. This blend of an almost scientific recording of nature with its abstraction and idealization is explained

I

•h

63
by Houdon in a letter of July 1772 written to Ernst II of SaxeGotha, to whom he was sending a plaster cast of the Ecorché:

If some skilled surgeons find something with which to

find fault in this work, I wouldn't be surprised, in spite

of the fact that all those to whom I showed it in Rome

as well as here seemed to me to be very satisfied. The

few whom I forced to find something to criticize about

it, persuaded that men do not all see alike, said to me

that they wanted a certain thing in such and such an

area. But... I had done this work to teach artists, which

is the reason for the correction of the design Surgeons, as skilled as they may be, are not artists, and

artists are not surgeons. In my view the skilled surgeon

must study after nature, as defective as one may find it

to be, in order to be able to treat every infirmity. But we

[artists] must study it differently. It is nature in all her

nobility, her perfect state of health, that we are looking

for, or if not, we are nothing but wretched imitators.

Houdon was also aware of the long tradition of sculptors' representations of flayed figures, and he consciously set out to

compete with them. There was a growing interest in the study

of anatomy among artists in Paris in the 17505. M. Sue, associate professor of anatomy and a central influence in this trend,

began teaching a course for artists in 1755. The sculptors JeanBaptiste Pigalle and Guillaume Coustou were among his students. Houdon would also have known Edme Bouchardon's

illustrations of an écorché for L'Anatomie nécessaire pour l'usage

du dessein, engraved by Jacques-Gabriel Huquier and first published in 1741 (fig. i).

In the present Ecorché it is evident that Houdon was planning to do his statue of Saint John the Baptist in marble, as he

included a tree trunk that would be necessary to support the

weight of the figure in marble or stone. Following the enthusiastic reception of the sculpture by his professors and colleagues,

he seized the opportunity to duplicate and sell his Ecorché, beginning at the Académie de France in Rome. Once he returned to

Paris and began to distribute the work, he eliminated the tree

trunk, as it was not needed to support the lighter-weight figure

when executed in plaster or in bronze.

The Ecorché is an early example of Houdon's self-interested,

entrepreneurial temperament. In an unpublished letter of

13 February 1776 the sculptor proudly wrote of the enthusiastic

reception this youthful work had met. His motives in proDetail of cat. i

Signature on cat. i

moting it seem to have been in part didactic, as he believed his

sculpture was an ideal figure from which art and medical students could study anatomy, a belief that has been borne out by

its enduring popularity. He also saw that reproducing the sculpture in plaster would both enhance his reputation and bring

him a substantial income. He was to continue this practice of

making and selling plaster casts of his sculptures throughout

his career. Listed in the sale held after Houdon's death in 1828

(see Related Works) was the plaster mold for the large Ecorché.

The catalogue specifies that the acquisition of the mold would

transfer ownership of the figure to the buyer. Thus the work

continued to be reproduced after Houdon's lifetime.

ANN E L. POULET

64
E A R L Y W O RK S

i.Jacques-Gabriel Huquier, Ecorché, engraving after Edme Bouchardon,

for L'Anatomie nécessaire pour l'usage du dessein, first published in 1741.

2. Houdon, Ecorché, 1769, white plaster, Ecole nationale supérieure des beauxarts, Paris.

PROVENANC E

Completed by ii Feb. 1767, as indicated in a letter of that date from Charles

Natoire, director of the Académie de France in Rome, to the marquis de

Marigny, director of the Bâtiments du Roi (Con. directeurs, 12:140, no. 5946;

Réau 1964,1:40, publishes all of this correspondence). Marigny approved

the purchase in a letter to Natoire, 9 Apr. 1767 (Con. directeurs, 12:146, no.

5952); Natoire confirmed Houdon's agreement to the academy's purchase

of the Ecorché in a letter of 6 May 1767 (Con. directeurs, 12:151, no. 5959).

Listed in an inventory of the Académie de France in 1781 prepared by M.

Vien, then director, and verified 9 July 1796 (Con. directeurs, 16:440); moved

in 1803 with the rest of the academy's collections from the Palazzo Mancini

to the Villa Medici, where it remains today.

REFERENCE S

Bachaumont 1780-1789,11:103; Montaiglon and Duplessis 1855,160-165;

Duval and Cuyer 1899, 202, 204-205; 203, fig. 74; Con. directeurs, 12:119,

122,140,146,151; 13:158; 15:186; 16:440; Lami 1910-1911,1:413; Giacometti

1918-1919,1:28-34; 3:140-144; Calosso 1922, 290-300, 306 nn. 10, n,

12; ill. p. 91; Vitry 1923,77; Giacometti 1929,1:8-9,

 l&°> 2O7> 2:246-248;

Réau 1934,36,39; Réau and Vallery-Radot 1938,176, ill. p. 78 (wrong photo);

Réau 1945, 95-96,114; pi. 18; Mansfeld 1955, 25-28,33-34; Puech 1960,

30-32; Réau 1964, 1:39-41, 50, 93, 94, 99, 142, 169, 180, 204-209;

2:15-16, no. i6A; Worcester 1964,18, 20; London 1972, 251-252, no. 389;

Arnason 1975,13-15» 107

 nn. 12,13; Paris 1993-1994,104; Luisa Somaini,

"Due celebri statue anatomiche del settecento. Gli écorchés di Lelli e di

Houdon," Due secoli di anatomía artística. Dalla macchina corpórea al corpo

vissuto [exh. cat., Accademia di belle arti di Brera] (Milán, 2000), 78-88; ill.

pp. 8o-81.

RELATE D WORK S

No thorough study has yet been made of the life-size casts of Houdon's

Ecorché, the institutions that acquired them during his lifetime, or the

institutions in which the early casts survive. Réau and Vallery-Radot 1938,

176-181, establishes a preliminary list of documented figures of the Ecorché,

which is repeated in Réau 1964,1:40-41. A partial list of known life-size

plasters of the model with the arm extended in front of the figure follows.

For the model with the right arm raised over the head see cat. 2.

Life-size plaster with tree trunk

Schlossmuseum Gotha (inv. P 25); H. (with base) 184 cm, W. 79 cm; painted

white; inscribed on tree trunk: "houdon / f. Romae /1767"; slightly larger than

the plaster in the Académie de France in Rome and in better condition, but

otherwise identical; perhaps cast while Houdon was in Rome or soon after

his return to Paris in 1768; shipped to Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha in July

1772 (see Appendix, lines 49-55) and installed in Schloss Friedenstein where

it has remained ever since. See Schuttwolf 1995,130-131, no. 45, ill.

Life-size plasters without tree trunk

Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris (inv. MU-I2I93) (see fig. 2);

H. 170 cm, W. 56 cm; white plaster; offered by Houdon to the Académie

royale de peinture et de sculpture, 30 Sept. 1769. See Procès-verbaux, 8:24;

Fontaine 1910, 71; Arnason 1975,14, fig. 58.

Formerly Académie de chirurgie, Paris; destroyed. See Pierre-ThomasNicolas Hurtaut and Abrahm Magny, Dictionnaire historique de la Ville de

Paris (Paris, 1779), 1:163;

 an(^ Legrand 1911, 307.

Ecole régionale des beaux-arts, Rouen; H. 170 cm; given to the Académie

de Rouen by M. de Cideville in Feb. 1776. See Houdon's letter of 29 Feb. 1776

65
to J.-B. Descamps, reproduced in Réau 1964,1:40; see also Rouen 1977,44,

no. 6.

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; H. 182 cm; purchased in 1805; listed in 1807 catalogue as "The First Set of Muscles in the

Human Subject." See Frank H. Goodyear Jr., "Tolerable Likenesses': The

Portrait Busts of William Rush," William Rush: American Sculptor [exh. cat.,

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts] (Philadelphia, 1982), 51.

Undesignated life-size plaster

According to a document sent to Mr. De Heyderveydt £ Co., Philadelphia,

dated 26 Oct. 1785, a life-size plaster Ecorché was sent by Houdon to the

"Etats de Virginie" (BMV, F 946, no. 49 bis). Present location unknown.

Plasters in sales catalogues before 1828

Dandré-Bardon, "peintre du Roi," Paris, 23 June 1783, 6, no. 21: "UEcorche

de M. Houdon. Quelques figures et Médaillons en plâtre."

Posthumous sale of Macret, engraver, Paris, 13 Jan. 1784, no. 6: "Plusieurs

morceaux de sculpture en plâtre dont l'écorché de M. Houdon."

Brenet, professor at the Académie royale, Paris, 16 Apr. 1792, no. 70: "30

figures et animaux en plâtre dont le grand écorché vif d'après M. Houdon."

Posthumous sale of Suvée, painter, Paris, 4 Nov. 1807, no. 153: "Deux

figures et un buste d'Ecorché par M. Houdon et 15 autres études de même

genre, plusieurs sont moulés sur nature et 6 petits torses" (66 livres).

Posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio, Paris, 15-17 Dec. 1828,

19-20, nos. 64-66: "Plâtre—Le grand Ecorché, épreuve peinte à l'huile et

offrant les couleurs des muscles vines et tendons"; "Plâtre—Le moule de la

figure précédente. L'acquisition de ce moule conférera la propriété de la figure,

l'une des plus estimées de notre école"; "Tête de l'Ecorché, peinte à l'huile."

Back view of cat. i

1. Mannlich (ed. 1989-1993), 260.

2. Mannlich (ed. 1989-1993), 260.

3. Con. directeurs, 12:141, no. 5946.

4. Corr. directeurs, 13:158.

5. Appendix in present catalogue, lines 55-73.

6. For a discussion of Houdon's place in this tradition

see Réau and Vallery-Radot 1938,170 -184.

7. See Duval and Cuyer 1899,186-192.

8. BMV, F 946, no. 229: "J'ai fait à Rome en qualité

d'élève de l'Académie royale de peinture et sculpture

une figure anatomique de grandeur naturelle communément appelée Ecorché, cette figure dont il se

trouve des plâtres dans les académies de Rome, Paris,

Toulouse, Flandres et Bordeaux qui y ont donné leur

agrément, est utile et même nécessaire pour l'étude

du dessein. J'ai l'avantage aussi de voir des Cours

souveraines et étrangères posséder de ces plâtres et

y donner leurs applaudissemens, telles que celle de

Pologne, Parme, Russi et Gotha."

66
U E COr die (Figure of a Flayed Man, Right Arm Raised above His Head)

1790

Bronze H. (to tip of right arm, with self-base) 203 cm; H. (to top of head, with base) 178 cm (diam. of base: 63 cm)

Inscribed on edge of base: houdonf.

Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris (inv. MUii974)

This imposing life-size figure of a flayed man with his right

arm raised above his head is one of Houdon's finest works in

bronze. A variant of the famous Ecorché created in Rome in

1767 (cat. i), it was cast in Paris in 1790. Houdon may well have

created this version of his Ecorché while still in Rome as a study

for an alternative pose for his statue of Saint John the Baptist

(cat. 3); but the first mention of this later model appears in an

unpublished letter of 13 February 1776 in which Houdon wrote

of the enormous success of the first version of his life-size

Ecorché and the fact that casts of it had been acquired by academies and courts all over Europe. He continued, "When I

returned from Rome in 1769 and had the honor to be a candidate for membership in the Académie [royale], several of my

colleagues requested that I undertake making a small version

of this figure in order to make it easier and less expensive to

acquire." He explained that he had postponed doing this

because there were so many unauthorized casts and copies

being made of sculptors' works and sold at low prices, "depriving artists of the esteem and the glory to which they aspire, as

well as robbing them of the fruits of their labor." He then wrote

that, with the assurance that the police would provide protection

against counterfeiters, he had just finished the sculpture and

that it would be available for sale in his studio in the Bibliothèque du Roi, "a figure of an Ecorché in plaster 19% pouces

[48.9 cm] high, including the arm, which is raised above the

head, and the base on which the figure is posed, where the seal

of the Académie [royale] and my name is applied."

Houdon does not explain why he chose to change the pose.

It may be in part because the raised arm shows the muscles

and tendons of the torso, shoulder, and arm in a different

configuration from those of the extended arm, making it more

useful as a model for artists. The pose is very similar to that of

the Ecorché drawn by Bouchardon and engraved by Huquier,

with which Houdon was certainly familiar (see cat. i, fig. i). It

also may have been easier to cast and less likely to break than

its predecessor. Because Houdon was already so preoccupied

with the counterfeiting of his sculptures, he also may have

wanted to change the model in order to better control its sale and

distribution. It is significant that in this document Houdon

mentions for the first time his use of the cachet de l'atelier on

his works, another device by which he sought to distinguish

his authentic production from unauthorized copies. Houdon's

concern about controlling the distribution of images of his

Ecorché is further evident in an unpublished contract of 1814

^

67

2

EARL Y WORK S

between the print dealer "Jean" and Mme Houdon acting on

her husband's behalf, in which permission to make and sell

prints of three engravings by Pariseau after Houdon's bronze

Ecorché is given for 300 francs, with the stipulation that the

plates will be returned either to Mme Houdon or to the Académie des beaux-arts upon Houdon's death2.

Life-size plaster casts of this second model were being

made at least by 4 December 1778, when Houdon wrote to M.

Fontanel, curator of the cast collection at the Société des beauxarts in Montpellier, concerning the acquisition of a large plaster Ecorché of this type for 300 livres (see Related Works). On

26 February 1779 the sculptor wrote again to say that he had

finished (réparé) the Ecorché himself and was sending it, along

with some other plaster casts, for the use of the students.

My goal, in devoting myself to this arduous work, is to

offer to the young and to amateurs a representation of

nature without flaws, each part of the study that I am

sending to you having been made after a large number

of models, from which I did not copy exactly and in the

tiniest detail the one which at first glance seemed to be

the most beautiful, having as a principle to defy this

deceptive appearance. For a simple copy, as of a head, a

foot, an ear, the model I use is the object itself that I have

decided to copy. But when it is a question of a beautiful

statue, I must review all of the models of the age that

I am to represent without focusing on any one of them,

and at the same time imitate and unite them into one

whole, that Monsieur, is the spirit in which I have made

my Ecorchés, my skulls, and the other pieces that I have

the honor of sending you4.

In April 1790 Houdon asked the members of the Académie

royale to choose one of the two models of his Ecorché for their

collection. They voted unanimously for the earlier model, even

though he had already given them a plaster of it in 1769. They

then must have changed their minds, because in the fall of the

same year Houdon made the present bronze cast of the second

model of the Ecorché for them. In a letter dated i November

1790 Gerhard Anton von Halem wrote:

I was at Houdon's last Sunday [31 or 22 October] in very

brilliant company. He had distributed quite a few tickets for people to come and see the bronze cast of the

Ecorché, destined for the Académie [des beaux-arts].

Back view of cat. 2

Thanks to the generosity of a friend, I had one of these

tickets, and in the evening when I made my visit, I found

myself in a throng of aristocrats among whom I recognized only Mme d'Orléans and M. de Chartres. To tell

the truth, one doesn't see much of the bronze. It only

seems to be an occasion for the artist to show his works

in a brilliant light to high society. The vast room in which

his works are displayed was lit from above in a very

flattering way.6

The bronze Ecorché unites the two aspects of his work that

Houdon considered most important, and he was enormously

proud of it. In a mémoire addressed to Bachelier on n October

1794, he wrote, "I can say that I devoted myself to only two types

of study that filled my entire life, and to which I sacrificed all that

I earned... anatomy and the casting [in bronze] of statues"7 The

cast is of very high quality and beautifully chased. It remains

an important model for the study of anatomy at the Ecole des

beaux-arts today.

ANN E L. POULET

69
i. Louis-Leopold Boilly, A Painter's Studio,

ca. 1800, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art,

Washington.

PROVENANC E

Cast in Paris Oct. 1790 (see text above and von Halem [ed. 1990], 188);

offered by Houdon to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture and

accepted 27 Oct. 1792 (Procès-verbaux, 10:187); following suppression of the

academy 8 Aug. 1793, the movements of the sculpture are not clear. It does

not appear in the inventory of the academy's holdings ordered by the Convention nationale and completed 9 Dec. 1793 by Naigeon and LeBrun, published in Fontaine 1910, 141-269. The academy's collections officially

became the property of the Museum National on 2 Aug. 1794 (Fontaine

1910,88 n. i). The sculpture may have remained in the Ecole des beaux-arts

in the Salle du Laocoôn at the Louvre until 1807, when it may have been

moved to the Musée des monuments français in the Petits Augustins until

the Restoration of the monarchy in 1814. The bronze does not appear in

nineteenth-century inventories of the school's holdings.

EXHIBITION S

Paris 1928,81-83, no. 78; P. Lavallée, An français des XVIIme e[XVIIIme siècles. Exposition de dessins de maîtres, livres, pièces d'archives et sculptures faisant

partie des collections de l'Ecole [exh. cat., Ecole nationale supérieure des beauxarts] (Paris, 1933), 59-60, no. 199; Les Artistes français en Italie de Poussin à

Renoir [exh. cat., Musée des arts décoratifs] (Paris, 1934), 116, no. 774; W.

Bouleau-Rabaud, L'Art français au XVI Ile siècle [exh. cat., Ecole nationale

supérieure des beaux-arts] (Paris, 1965), no. 131; Bernard Mahieu, Ariane

Duero, and Odile Dresch, Rome à Paris [exh. cat., Musée du Petit Palais]

(Paris, 1968), no. 586, ill.; London 1972, 251-252, no. 389; Rouen 1977,45,

no. 8, ill. p. 142; Paris 1993-1994,108, no. 66, ill. p. 108.

REFERENCE S

Duval and Cuyer 1899, 202, 204-205, fig. 75; Dilke 1900,130-131; Lami

1910-1911,1:413; Giacometti 1918-1919,1:124-125; 3:145-146; Calosso

1922, 295, 306 n. 14, ill. p. 301; Giacometti 1929,1:180,188, ill. opp. p. 10;

2:248-249; "Ecole des beaux-arts. Exposition d'art des XVlle et XVIIle

siècles," Bulletin des musées de France, no. 7 (1933), 109; Rabaud 1938,

112-113, fig. X; Réau and Vallery-Radot 1938, 181-182, ill. p. 181; Mansfeld 1955,34-35; Eveline Schlumberger, "Les Ecorchés, plus que des études

anatomiques. De rares oeuvres d'art," Connaissance des arts (July 1959),

74-79, fig. 4; Réau 1964, 1:99; 2:16, no. 16, pi. XX, i6c; Arnason 1975,

15, 20, 68, 88, 92, 93,117 n. 215,118 n. 227, pis. 43, 5; Gaborit 1975, 243,

246 n. 20; von Halem (ed. 1990), 188 n. 221; Bresc-Bautier 1994, 373.

RELATE D WORK S

A complete study of Houdon's Ecorchés has not yet been made. Below are

listed the sculptures documented as being of the second model, with the right

arm held above the figure's head. For a list of other related works see cat. i.

Life-size plasters

Musée Fabre, Montpellier (formerly the Société des beaux-arts) (inv. 806.32);

white plaster; H. 185 cm, W. 80 cm; damaged. Recorded in minutes of society's meeting, 7 Mar. 1779, that Houdon had sent them "un Grand Ecorché,

réparé par lui-même," at a cost of 300 livres, and "son Petit Ecorché" (Stein

Wl* 379)-

Ecole des beaux-arts, Paris; painted in polychrome by Sue fils, 1792-

1793; lost and presumed destroyed (see Procès-verbaux, 10:197,210-211,213).

70
EARL Y WORK S

Reduced-size terracotta

Houdon's studio sale, Paris, 8 Oct. 1795,16, no. 90: "UEcorche, figure de

petite proportion; hauteur 18 pouces [45.7 cm]" (4000 francs).

Reduced-size plaster

According to a document sent to Mr. De Heyderveydt & Co., Philadelphia,

dated 26 Oct. 1875,

 a "petit écorché" was given to Robert Edge Pine by

Houdon (BMV, F 946, no. 49 bis).

Reduced-size bronzes

Houdon's studio sale, Paris, 8 Oct. 1795,12>

no

- ^5: "Une Figure d'Homme

écorché le bras droit élevé, il est posé sur terrasse; hauteur 18 pouces [45.7

cm]" (14,600 francs).

[Lucien-François] Feuchère père sale, Paris, 29 Nov. 1824, n: M. Houdon,

no. 15 bis: "un écorché fait avec soin— H.: 20 pouces [50.8 cm]" (201 francs,

to Emmerson).

Feuchère and Fossey sale, Paris, 12 Dec. 1831, no. 2: "L'Ecorché de

Houdon—16 pouces [33 cm] de proportion. Bronze très soigné par M.

Thomire" (80 francs).

Odiot père sale, Paris, i Mar. 1847, no. 23: "L'Ecorché de Houdon. Bronze

fondu et ciselé par Thomire en 1776" (62 francs, to Rolin).

Posthumous sale Comte [de Imécourt], Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 23 May

1872, no. 117: "L'Ecorché de Houdon. Beau bronze portant l'inscription

'Houdon f. fondu ciselé par Thomire, 1776' " (200 francs).

Formerly Edmond Courty collection, Châtillon-sous-Bagneux; H. 58.42

cm; inscribed on base: "Houdon F. Fondu ciselé par Thomire 1776" (see

Arnason 1964, 18-20, ill.); differs from large bronze in that the figure's

right arm is raised and bent so that the fingers touch the top of the head;

probably identical with bronze in Comte [de Imécourt] sale, 23 May 1872

(see above).

Boilly paintings

Small-scale plaster of the Ecorché depicted in A Painter's Studio by Boilly (fig.

i), on the artist's table to the right. Both of Boilly's paintings of Houdon in

His Studio (see cat. 66) show a life-size figure of the Ecorché with arm raised

above his head at the extreme left. The figures appear to be bronze, or

plaster painted to resemble bronze.

Signature on cat. 2

1. BMV, F 946, no. 229.

2. BMV, F 946, no. 227, contract for making prints

after the Ecorché: "Entre les soussignés Marie Ange

Cécile Houdon, chargée de pouvoir de monsieur le

chevalier Houdon, sculpteur, membre de l'Institut

royal de France, et Jean, marchand d'estampes, demeurant rue St.-Jean de Beauvau à Paris, a été convenu ce

qui suit: Que la dame Houdon, du consentement de

M. Houdon, son mari, avait et passait la propriété au

sieur Jean, marchand d'estampes, des trois planches

de cuivre gravées en 1781 par le sieur Pariseau d'après

la statue de l'Ecorché en bronze de M. Houdon, pour

en faire le nombre d'épreuves qu'il jugera convenable

pendant la vie durante de M. Houdon. De laquelle

propriété le sieur Jean jouira moyennant la somme

de 300 francs qu'il payera à la dame Houdon lors de

la remise des dites planches gravées.

"Que le sieur Jean s'engage à payer la dite

somme de 300 francs à la dame Houdon pour la jouissance et propriété des dites planches pendant la vie

de M. Houdon. Qu'en outre, il s'oblige à remettre

formellement les dites planches gravées entre les

mains de la dite dame Houdon où à l'Académie de

France, selon qu'il ne sera requis un mois après la

mort de M. Houdon, époque où se feront la jouissance

et comission qui lui seront faites par le présent."

Signed and dated 29 Dec. 1814. Examples of these

engravings have not yet been found.

3. ADH, in records predating 1790, Archives civiles,

ser. D 233: "j'ai l'honneur de vous faire part qu'ayant

désir de mettre des plâtres de mon ÉCORCHÉ dans

toutes les académies j'y ai mis un prix fort modique

relativement à toutes les peines et les dépenses que

j'ai été obligé de faire à ce sujet. La somme est de

trois cent livres."

4. ADH, Archives civiles, ser. D 233: "Mon but, en me

livrant à ces travaux pénibles est d'offrir à la jeunesse

et aux amateurs la représentation de la nature sans

défauts, chacune des parties d'étude que je vous

envoie, ayant été faite d'après un grand nombre de

modèles, dont je ne me suis point asservi à copier juste

et dans la plus mince exactitude celui qui au premier

coup d'oeil paraissait le plus beau ayant pour principe

de me défier de cette trompeuse apparence. Pour une

imitation simple, telle que d'une tête, d'un pied, d'une

oreille le modèle dont je me sers est l'objet même que

je m'assujettis à copier. Mais lorsqu'il s'agit d'une belle

statue, je dois passer en revue tous ceux de l'âge que

j'ai à représenter, de me fixer sur aucun, et cependant

les imiter et les réunir pour ainsi dire tous en un seul,

voila Monsieur, l'esprit avec lequel j'ai fait mes

Ecorchés, mes têtes de mort et les différentes pièces

que j'ai l'honneur de vous envoyer."

5. Procès-verbaux, 10:58.

6. Von Halem (éd. 1990), 188.

7. Reproduced in Réau 1964,1:99.

7i

3

Saint John the Baptist

1766-1767

Plaster, painted white

H. 169 cm (with self-base: 178 cm) (base: H. 9 cm, W. 58.74 cm, D. ca. 50.8 cm)

Galleria Borghese, Rome (inv. CCLXXI)

In 1766 Houdon, who was a student at the Académie de France,

Rome, was given the very prestigious commission for two overlife-size statues —one of Saint Bruno (see cat. 4) and the other

of Saint John the Baptist—by Dom André Le Masson, the French

procureur general of the Carthusian order of friars. These sculptures, the former representing the patron saint of the Carthusians, the latter the prototype of the virtues and ideals of the

order, were to occupy facing niches in the church of Santa Maria

degli Angeli, the seat of the Carthusian order in Rome. Built

into the ancient baths of Diocletian, the church had been

designed by Michelangelo in 1561 and had undergone a number of subsequent transformations. In 1749 the architect Luigi

Vanvitelli was asked to regularize the plan of the building and

to make its decoration harmonious throughout. Both he and

Michelangelo had kept the two large niches in the walls between

the vestibule and the nave of the church, which had been part

of the original Roman baths. The renovation work was not

completed until 1765, and the commission for the two statues

followed shortly thereafter. In 1767 Houdon installed the colossal marble statue of Saint Bruno in its niche, where it remains

today. For reasons that are not entirely clear—possibly lack of

money or lack of time—Houdon executed the large pendant

figure of Saint John the Baptist only in plaster, placing it in its

niche before he left Rome at the end of 1768. This enormous

plaster (H. 315 cm) remained in position until the night of

3-4 June 1894, when it fell and broke into small pieces. Unfortunately, no photographs of the statue have survived, so its

exact composition is unknown.

The present life-size plaster statue of Saint John the Baptist

was discovered in 1921 in the storerooms of the Museo

Nazionale in Rome. Like the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli,

the museum is built directly on the site of the ancient Roman

baths of Diocletian. Despite the sculpture's damaged condition,

Achille Bertini Calosso recognized it as Houdon's model for the

statue commissioned by the Carthusians in 1766. It is the only

known surviving version of the full statue. In striking contrast

to the Saint Bruno, Houdon's Saint John the Baptist is shown

in an animated pose and is represented nude except for an

animal skin draped around his loins and held in place by a

strap that runs diagonally across his chest. His right arm is

extended horizontally in front of him in a gesture of blessing,

while his left arm falls at his side. The saint's weight rests on his

left foot, and his right leg is bent behind him as though he is

about to step forward. An indication that Houdon intended to

73

-i-
i. Hondón, Head of Saint John the Baptist, 1766-1767, plaster, painted

white, Schlossmuseum Gotha.

execute the sculpture in marble is found in the support that

appears at his side, which would have been necessary to sustain the weight of the figure in marble.

In preparation for the execution of this first major commission, Houdon modeled a figure of a flayed man in the same

pose (see cat. i). Johann Christian von Mannlich, Houdon's

friend and fellow student at the Académie de France in Rome,

wrote in his diary, "My friend Houdon, who at that time was

doing a statue representing Saint John the Baptist for the Church

of the Carthusians, had the idea to do the model in clay that he

had at hand, first as an écorché, and every day he used our

[anatomy] lesson and my drawings in order to study the system

of muscles thoroughly." A comparison with Houdon's plaster

Ecorché of 1767 reveals how closely his statue of Saint John the

Baptist follows it in proportions and pose.

Among the sculptures that Houdon sent to Duke Ernst II in

Gotha in July 1772 was a plaster Head of Saint John the Baptist (fig.

i). In the letter of explanation that he sent with the shipment,

Houdon revealed the model he used for the head of the saint as

well as valuable information about his working methods.

I found a kind of hermit living among the people, bare

feet, wearing a sort of cape of a Capuchin friar, and with

a head that suited me fairly well.... I approached him as

he left [St. Peter's] and asked him to serve as the model

for the Head only. Neither gold nor silver nor even

prayers would make him agree to do it. He said to me

that he was not worthy of serving as a model for a saint.

I decided to use him without having any obligation to him.

I studied him carefully and stored it in my head as well as

I possibly could. I returned to the academy, which is quite

a long distance from St. Peter's, and I modeled a mass of

day already prepared for this purpose. I returned the next

day and the day after that to see him again and finished

g

my head in fact without obligation to him.

Just as he had with the Ecorché, Houdon worked selectively from

nature, choosing a model that corresponded to his idea of Saint

John, then perfecting it.

This letter also reveals that the young sculptor was anxious

to win the approval of his teachers and friends:

I showed [the head of Saint John] to my superior and to

my colleagues, who found it to be very good. But there

were several minds who... said to me that it would be

even better if there were more spiritual fire, in a word

more action... .1 wanted to satisfy everyone, but I also

feared that I would undo what I declare now to have

never done better... .In order to have no reason to

reproach myself, I had it cast, and on the clay I did what

one wanted me to do. The two heads placed next to

each other were generally found to be good, but most

people preferred the first one. It wouldn't have taken

much so that in wanting to do too well, I would have

ruined a good head if I hadn't taken the measure of pre9

serving it by means of a mold.

2-3. Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, two drawings o/Saint John the Baptist in Salon

catalogue 0/1769,38 and je garde/verso (detail), BNEst.

74
E AR LY WO R KS

It is significant that Houdon did a second, more baroque head

(lost) to please his critics, but that he and they preferred the

quieter, more classical version in the end. Already in the early

part of his career the artist was preserving his compositions in

plaster through the use of piece molds, a practice he would continue for the rest of his life.

Houdon also executed two models of the entire figure of

Saint John—one with the right arm stretched out in front of

him in a gesture of blessing, as in the present plaster, and the

other with the right arm raised above his head, as recorded in two

drawings by Saint-Aubin in his copy of the Salon catalogue of

1769 (figs. 2-3). Houdon may well have executed an Ecorché

in this second pose as a study while still in Rome (see cat. 2).

Although no photographs survive of the original Saint John as

installed at Santa Maria degli Angeli, a strong indication that the

second pose was used is the fact that the sculptor exhibited that

version, along with his Saint Bruno—his two most famous Roman

sculptures, both shown in niches—at his first Salon in 1769.

In a review of the 1769 Salon a critic called Pingeron wrote,

"M. Houdon exhibited a statue of Saint John the Baptist that

reminds amateurs of the Christ Holding the Cross by Michelangelo, which one admires in the church of the Minerva in

Rome." This relationship has been repeated by Houdon scholars into the twentieth century and seems to be well founded,

particularly when one compares the figure of Christ to the

version of Saint John with the arm raised (fig. 3). Like Michelangelo's Christ (fig. 4), Houdon's Saint John is a powerful, idealized standing male nude with his weight balanced on one leg.

There is a close resemblance between the heads of the two

figures, both with long, wavy hair parted in the middle, short

beards and a mustache, and deep-set, lightly incised eyes. They

share a great beauty of modeling and spiritual expression. In

early inventories at Gotha, Houdon's head of Saint John was

mistaken for a head of Christ. It was fitting that Houdon found

inspiration in the sculpture of Michelangelo, who as architect

of Santa Maria degli Angeli had designed the entrance and

vestibule of the church. Combining the Christ of Michelangelo

with anatomical studies and classical prototypes, Houdon

invented a superb figure that was the active counterpart to the

passive, contemplative Saint Bruno installed in the facing niche.

ANN E L. POULET

4. Michelangelo, Christ Holding the Cross, 1518-1521, white marble,

Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Rome.

Detail of cat. 3

75
PROVENANC E

In 1921 Achille Bertini Calosso identified the present plaster, found in the

collection of the Museo Nazionale, Rome, by its director, Robert Paribeni, as

the life-size model for Houdon's Saint John the Baptist (see Calosso 1922,

298); following its restoration by Cesare Fossi, it was transferred to the

Gallería di Villa Borghese, where it remains today.

REFERENCE S

Dierks 1887,17-18; Paul Vitry, "Le 'Saint Jean-Baptiste' de Houdon," BSHAF

(1910), 207; Giacometti 1918-1919, 1:34; 3:220-221; Calosso 1922,

289-307; Réau i922b, 316-318; Réau 1923, 43-52, ill. pp. 48-49; Vitry

1923,77-81, ill.; Giacometti 1929,1:8-9, ^- °PP- P-

 22> Reau :934' 3^, 38;

Réau 1945, 96-98; ítalo Faldi, Gallería Borghese. Le Sculture dal secólo XVI

al XIX(Rome, 1954), 57, no. 54; Puech 1960, 30-32; Réau 1964,1:39-42,

94, 99, 142, 144, 146, 147, 199-200, 204, 205, 210-212; 2:16, no. 17,

pi. XXII; Arnason 1975, n, 13-15,45, fig- 59; Schuttwolf 1995,129; Mannlich

(ed. 1989-1993), 260; Moreno and Stefani 2000,125, no. 7, ill.

RELATE D WORK S

Plasters

Life-size statue (lost), shown at Salon of 1769 (not in cat.; see Réau 1923,

43-52). Two drawings by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (see figs. 2-3; and Dacier

1909-1921, 2:89,

 nos

- 38

 and 7e garde/verso) show the figure standing in

a niche with his right arm raised and holding in his left hand a staff surmounted by a cross.

Schlossmuseum Gotha, Head of Saint John the Baptist (inv. P 39) (see fig.

i); painted white; H. 66.5 cm, W. 38 cm, D. 34 cm; exhibited at Salon of 1769

(not in cat); see Réau 1923, 44-45, 51-52, ill. p. 41; Schuttwolf 1995,129,

no. 44, ill.

Boilly paintings

A terracotta-colored Head of Saint John the Baptist appears on the center bottom shelf at the back of the room in both of Boilly's paintings of Houdon's

studio (cat. 66).

1. Corr. directeurs, 12:119,122,140,146,151, nos. 5911,

5915, 5946,5952, and 5959.

2. See Mario Rotili, Vita di Luigi Vanvitelli (Naples,

1975), 132-136.

3. See Marcel Raymond and Charles Marcel-Raymond,

"Vanvitelli et Michel-Ange à Sainte-Marie-des-Anges,"

GBA, 5th ser., 7 (Sept.-Oct., 1922), 195-217, esp.

203-204, ill. p. 199.

4. The records of Santa Maria degli Angeli are conserved in the Archivio de Stato di Roma. See James

Hogg, The Charterhouse of Rome (Salzburg, 1984), 12.

But no mention of the commission was found there.

The author wishes to thank Dr. Christoph Frank for

this information.

5. See Réau 1923, 50; and C. Bernardi Salvetti, S. Maria

degli Angeli allé Terme e Antonio Lo Duca (Rome, 1965),

109-110.

6. Calosso 1922, 289-307.

7. Mannlich (ed. 1989-1993), 1:260.

8. Appendix to the present catalogue, lines 340-357.

9. Appendix, lines 357-374.

10. Réau 1923,44.

11. See, for example, Réau 1964,1:212;

and Arnason 1975,14.

12. "Verzeichniss der im sogenannten Antiken-Saale

befindlichen Abgusse, Biisten pp.," ThStA, Gotha, ca.

1804-1827, "Cap: II," fol. 4V, nos. 3-4: "Maria und

Christus"; "Catalog der Sammlung der Gips-Abgusse,"

Schlossmuseum Gotha, 1845, "Büsten," no. 37:

"Maria/von Houdon."

76
* Saint Bruno

Probably 1766-1767

Plaster, painted white

H. 84.4 cm, W. 32.5 cm

Schlossmuseum Gotha (inv. P 27)

4

This statue of Saint Bruno is the same one that Houdon exhibited in the Salon of 1769. Its identification is confirmed by SaintAubin's drawing of the figure in his copy of the Salon catalogue

(fig. i) as well as by the letter Houdon wrote to accompany a

shipment of his works to the Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha in

July 1772, specifying "the Saint Bruno that was exhibited at the

Salon three years ago." Of the five examples of Houdon's work

shown at his first Salon in 1769, all dating from his years in

Rome, four were sent to the court of Saxe-Gotha in 1772.

This plaster is a small-scale version of Houdon's over-life-size

marble of Saint Bruno in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli

in Rome (fig. 2). It may be the original presentation model for

the marble or a cast of it, for the plaster is virtually identical to

the marble in its proportions and pose; even the back is roughly

finished, as is that of the marble, which was intended to be seen

only from the front and sides. The composition of the figure is

simple, closed, and almost columnar. The saint, who has his

eyes lowered in contemplation, is conceived to fit quietly into the

space of a niche.

The Saint Bruno, along with a statue of Saint John the Baptist (cat. 3), was created in 1766-1767 by the twenty-five-year-old

Houdon, who had arrived in Rome in late 1764 as a Prix de

Rome winner at the Académie de France. Both works were

commissioned by Dom André Le Masson, the French procureur

général of the Carthusian order of friars. Representing the patron

saint and the founder of the order, respectively, the statues were

to occupy two niches flanking the space between the vestibule

and the nave of the church, which was the seat of the Carthusian order in Rome. Charles Natoire, director of the academy,

wrote to Marigny, director of the Bâtiments du Roi, on 16 July

1766 to tell him that Houdon had already begun to work on

this prestigious commission, that he was highly qualified, and

that it should contribute to the advancement of his career. The

colossal marble statue of Saint Bruno was completed and

installed in its niche in 1767.

Houdon's Saint Bruno is a remarkable achievement for a young

sculptor. It was conceived as a stylistic alternative to the dramatic

neobaroque marble Saint Bruno done by his teacher, Michel-Ange

Slodtz, in 1744 for Saint Peter's in Rome. In contrast to Slodtz'

figure—gesturing with his left hand to refuse a bishop's miter and

staff offered by a putto while twisting to point to a skull with

his right hand—Houdon's robed saint stands motionless and

introspective, without attributes, his arms folded across his chest,

and his eyes lowered. Contemporary critics praised the figure

77

EARL Y WORK S

for embodying the humility, faith, and vow of silence associated

with the Carthusian order. Avoiding all narrative detail, Houdon

distilled these qualities in his monumental figure of the saint.

Johann Christian von Mannlich, a friend and fellow student

of Houdon's at the Académie de France in Rome, wrote that in

1766 Houdon was studying anatomy by dissecting corpses under

the tutelage of a French professor of surgery named Séguier at

Saint-Louis des Français in Rome. From these studies he composed his famous Ecorché (cat. i), which served as a preparatory

model for his Saint John the Baptist. These anatomical studies

also inform the composition of the Saint Bruno. One senses the

body of the saint under his heavy robes. The head of the saint,

with the sharp definition of the face and skull, also relies on the

Ecorché. At the same time, the proportions and pose of the figure

recall those of the famous classical statue of Antinous in the

Capitoline Museum (fig. 3), a sculpture that was greatly admired

in France in the eighteenth century and considered to be a model

for the ideal figure of a young man. The style of the Saint Bruno,

which was the result of the sculptor's close study of anatomy

combined with an equally careful study of classical prototypes,

was to characterize all of Houdon's later work,

ANN E L. POULET

j. Antinous, Hadrianic copy of a

Hermes from the early 4th century BC,

marble, Capitoline Museum, Rome.

i. Gabriel de Saint-Aubin,

drawing o/Saint Bruno in a

Niche in Salon catalogue of

1769, 55, je garde (detail),

BNEst.

2. Houdon, Saint Bruno,

1766-1767, marble, Santa Maria degli

Angeli, Rome.

PROVENANC E

Identical with the plaster Houdon exhibited at Salon of 1769 (see text above);

sent by Houdon to Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha in July 1772 and incorporated

into the plaster cast collection at Schloss Friedenstein; listed as "Der heilige

Bruno" under "Cap: III. An kleinen Modellen, antik und modern" in the

collection's earliest known written inventory, "Verzeichniss der im sogenannten Antiken-Saale befindlichen Abgüsse, Büsten pp." (undated, ThStA

Gotha, no. 63, ca. 1804-1827, fol. 5v), no. 17; listed in subsequent inventories: "Catalog der Sammlung der Gips-Abgusse" (Schlossmuseum Gotha,

1845), under "Kleinere Statuen," no. 54, as "St. Bruno /von Houdon"; Eduard

Wolfgang, "Verzeichniss der Abgüsse antiker und moderner Bildhauerarbeiten im Herzogl: Antiken-Cabinet zu Gotha" (Schlossmuseum Gotha,

1857), no. ill.6i; and Wolfgang 1869,

 23> no

-

 IV-37-

EXHIBITION S

Paris, Salon of 1769 (not in cat; see Réau 1923,41-52); Berlin 1955, 67, ill.

pp. 18, 20; Duisburg 1987, 136, no. 85, ill. p. 137; Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Edgar Peters Bowron and Joseph J. Rishel [exh. cat.,

Philadelphia Museum of Art] (Philadelphia, 2000), 256-257, cat. 131, ill.

REFERENCE S

Lettre sur l'exposition... au Salon du Louvre 1769 (Paris, 1769), 49 (Deloynes

IX, no. 120); L'Année littéraire (Paris, 1769), 320 (Deloynes IX, no. 128);

LAvant-coureur, no. 39 (Paris, 1769), 404 (Deloynes IX, no. 137); [Daudet de

Jossac], Sentiments surles tableaux exposés au Salon (Paris, 1769), 27 (Deloynes

IX, no. 122); "Lettre... au sujet des ouvrages exposés au Salon du Louvre en

1769" (1769), 370 (Deloynes IX, no. 133); Dierks 1887, 25,116; Cari Aldenhoven, "Houdon in Gotha (1887)," in Gesammelte Aufsatze, ed. A. Lindner

(Leipzig, 1911), 142; Dacier 1909-1921, 2:88-89, pi- 7e garde/verso; Giacometti 1918-1919, 2:26; 3:218-219; Calosso 1922, 289-307, ill. p. 291;

Réau 1923, 43-46,49-50, 52; Brinckmann 1925,132-133; Schwark 1930,

79
49> pl- 40.!; C.M.A.A. Lindeman, "Een tweetal onbekende ontwerpen voor

den H. Bruno van Houdon," Maandblad voor Beeldende Kunsten 19 (Oct.

1942), 228-235,

 n8- 2> Reau

 1945, 96-98; Mansfeld 1955, 28-32, no. 2;

Bogyay 1964,113; Réau 1964,2:16, no. 18; Arnason 1975,12, pl. 7; Schuttwolf

1995,132, no. 46, ill. p. 173.

RELATE D WORK S

Full-length statues

Marble

Over-life-size marble in church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Rome (see fig.

2); H. 315 cm; commissioned from Houdon in 1766; installed in a niche

between nave and vestibule in 1767.

Reductions of the Head of Saint Bruno

Houdon also executed several reductions of the Head of Saint Bruno as independent sculptures in plaster and bronze:

Plaster— extant

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (inv. CA-757); painted terracotta color; H. 18 cm

(with base: 23 cm), W. at shoulders 10.6 cm; cachet de l'atelier on center back;

collection of François Devosge (1732-1811), founder and director of Ecole

de dessin, Dijon; by inheritance to his son Anatole Devosge (1770-1850);

bequeathed to the city of Dijon; transferred to the Musée des Beaux-Arts,

Dijon, in 1850 (see Quarré 1960, 45, no. 247; Réau 1964, 2:16, no. 18, pl.

xxiv, fig. 18/71).

Plaster

Musée des monuments français, Paris (inv. 551); plaster cast of the marble;

H. 350 cm, W. 103 cm; recorded a^s having entered the collection ca. 1883

(AMMF).

Reductions

Plasters—sales

Documented in the catalogues of the Bergeret sale, Paris, 24 Apr. 1786,127,

no. 496: "Un Saint-Bruno en plâtre, par M. Houdon, sur piédestal en bois

de chêne. Hauteur 5 pieds 6 pouces [167.6 cm]"; and the posthumous sale

of the contents of Houdon's studio, Paris, 15-17 Dec. 1828, no. 9: "Plâtre

peint. Petit modèle de la belle statue de Saint Bruno, exécutée en marbre

par M Houdon et placée à Rome dans l'église des Chartreux."

Marble

There is a nineteenth-century copy in the Museum of the History of Religion,

St. Petersburg, Russia (inv. A.1472.Ill); H. 107 cm, W. 39 cm. The author

wishes to thank Guilhem Scherf for bringing this sculpture to her attention.

Terracottas

Kunstgewerbemuseum, Hamburg (inv. 1959.256 and 257); two terracotta

statuettes, attributed to Houdon and considered preparatory studies for

the statue; H. 44 cm, W. 16.2 cm; and H. 46.1 cm, W. 17.7 cm; acquired

on the art market in Amsterdam in 1959. In one the saint holds an open

book, and in the other his hands are clasped in front of him in a slightly

more active pose as he looks down to his right. See Christian Theuerkauff

et al, Die Bildwerke des 18. Jahrhunderts. Museum jur Kunst una Gewerbe

Hamburg (Braunschweig, 1977), 280-283, nos. 164,165, ill. While these

terracottas clearly bear a relationship to Houdon's Saint Bruno and appear

to date from the eighteenth century, it is uncertain whether they are preliminary sketches by Houdon's hand.

Drawing

Gabriel de Saint-Aubin drew a sketch of Houdon's plaster statue of Saint

Bruno in a niche in his copy of the Salon catalogue of 1769 (see fig. i; and

Dacier 1909-1921, 2:88-89, pl. 76 garde).

Plasters—lost or location unknown

A small Head of Saint Bruno, painted terracotta color, shipped by Houdon to

the Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha in July 1772 (see Appendix, lines 448 - 452),

does not appear in any inventories of the royal collection at Gotha, and it

does not exist in the collection today.

Other reductions appeared in the François sale, Paris, 19 June 1777, no.

31: "La tête de Saint Bruno... sous un cage de verre avec un pied doré" (without indication of medium, but all but one of the other sculptures by Houdon

in the sale were plasters); and in the Beauvais sale, Paris, 8 July 1793, no.

118: "Le buste de Saint Bruno. Joli plâtre par Houdon."

Bronze—lost or location unknown

Houdon's studio sale, Paris, 8 Oct. 1795,12, no. 67, under "Figures et bustes

en bronze": "Le Buste de Saint Bruno, extrait de la Statue en marbre faite

pour l'Eglise des Chartreux à Rome, il est pose sur pied douche en bronze

doré; hauteur totale: 8 pouce 9 lignes [ca. 22.6 cm]" (752 livres, as noted

by Rigault Delaland).

Back view of cat. 4

i. Dacier 1909-1921, 2:88-89, mistakenly identifies

the statue of Saint Bruno drawn by Saint-Aubin as a

work by Etienne Pierre Adrien Gois (no. 221 in the

Salon cat).

2. Appendix in the present catalogue, lines 316-317.

3. Con. directeurs, 12:119.

4. Mannlich (ed. 1989-1993), 1:260, 269.

5. Haskell and Penny 1981,143-144, no. 5, fig. 74.

80
Priest of the Lupercalia

Probably 1768

Plaster, painted white, with self-base

H. (with base) 78 cm, W. 49 cm (diam. of base: 31 cm)

Schlossmuseum Gotha (inv. P 38)

5

For many decades mistaken for a "running youth," this statuette actually represents the unusual subject of a priest of

the ancient Roman spring festival known as the Lupercalia.

Observed on 15 February, this fertility and purifying rite honored the god Lupercus, or Faunus (Greek: Pan). Proceedings

started at the Lupercal cave on the Palatine Hill, where the

she-wolf (Latin: lupa) is said to have suckled the infants Romulus and Remus, legendary founders of Rome. The festivities

included the sacrificial offering of one or more goats, after which

the ceremony officials—the Luperci—would anoint themselves

with goats' blood and race through the streets, nude except for

a girdle cut from the animals' hide. Wielding bloody thongs

of goatskin, they would lash at onlookers, especially women, in

an action intended to promote fertility and facilitate childbirth,

a superstition also put forward in Ovid. Houdon's Priest of the

Lupercalia is captured at this moment, running with his right

arm raised, ready to swing one of the rolled-up strips of goat

hide in his hand.

The present plaster of the Priest of the Lupercalia is the only

known surviving version and comes directly from the sculptor's

studio. Houdon sent it to Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha in July

1772 as part of a larger shipment of sculptures, noting in the

accompanying letter, preserved in the library of Schloss Friedenstein in Gotha: "One will find a small figure enclosed in a crate

that is inserted inside the large one, representing the Priest of

the Lupercalia... .This plaster is the one with which I was agréé.

It was exhibited at the Salon of 1769." Houdon here ascribes

special importance to the Priest of the Lupercalia by singling it

out as the one piece that secured his preliminary admission to

the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1769, yet he

reportedly submitted several sculptures. Although not listed in

the official Salon catalogue, it was documented in a drawing by

Saint-Aubin (fig. i) and was highly praised by the critics: "The

Luperque by M. Houdon is certainly in motion, as antiquity

would require of these kinds of priests of the god Pan"; "a charming figure, seized in movement perfectly; it is nature caught as

she is and embellished by the execution"; "full of grace and of

informed refinement"; "full of warmth"; and "with a refined

design, great subtlety of surface, and a light composition."

Houdon's statuette is a dynamic study of the male body in

motion. Balanced on the ball of his left foot, the figure stretches

his right arm forward and his right leg back in a strong diagonal. The pose recalls that of the famous Borghese Gladiator,

which, from the time of its discovery in the early seventeenth

81

EARL Y WO R KS

i. Gabriel de Saint-Aubin,

drawing o/Priest of the

Lupercalia in Salon catalogue

0/2769 (detail), BNEst.

century, was widely celebrated for its truthful rendering of

anatomy. In the eighteenth century the work could be seen in

the Villa Borghese in Rome, where numerous artists admired

and copied it. Houdon's Priest of the Lupercalia transformed this

antique nude into a running figure by tilting it slightly forward

onto one foot and lifting the other foot. The impression of movement is enhanced by the windblown hair and fluttering animal

pelt, and the face is animated by the pupils defined in the eyes

and teeth showing in a slightly opened mouth. Almost a century

and a half earlier, Gian Lorenzo Bernini used similar devices

in his Apollo and Daphne (1622), also displayed at the Villa

o

Borghese. Another possible prototype for Houdon's Priest of the

Lupercalia, and maybe closest of all, is Nicolas Coustou's Apollo

(fig. 2), executed for the gardens of Marly around 1713-1714.

Coustou drew inspiration from both Bernini and the Gladiator,

consciously combining elements from the antique and the

Roman baroque. The Priest of the Lupercalia is the most baroque

expression in Houdon's career, distinguished from all later

figures by its animation and extension into space.

Unlike the Bacchanalia, the theme of the Lupercalia was

never popular in the fine arts, and possible models are rare. Documented depictions of the subject include a series of seventeenth9

century etchings mentioned by Pierre Jean Mariette. Under "Les

cérémonies des fêtes Lupercales," Mariette lists fifteen prints

by Jean Le Pautre and Louis de Châtillon, finished by Jean

Boulanger, after drawings by François Tortebat. The series, dated

1659, is based on a fresco cycle representing the story of

Romulus and Remus, which Agostino, Annibale, and Ludovico

Carracci executed around 1590 for the Palazzo Magnani in

Bologna. Only one scene is named, "Ludi Lupercali," and it shows

a youthful priest, nude but for a cloth around his hips, wielding

a whip and chasing a fleeing woman (fig. 3). His dynamic posture on one leg, his lean but muscular body, the disheveled hair

and fluttering fabric, all are elements that can be seen in

Houdon's Priest of the Lupercalia. Prints of this kind were widely

distributed and regularly copied by artists and craftsmen.

Réau suggests that Houdon may have gotten the idea for

his Priest of the Lupercalia from Michel-François DandréBardon. Dandré-Bardon was a professor of historical costumes

and Roman history at the Ecole royale des élèves protégés, the

exclusive school at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in Paris where Houdon studied for three years prior to his

stay in Rome. Dandré-Bardon explains the particulars of the

Lupercalia feast in the first volume of his Costume des anciens

peuples, published in 1772, and he even illustrates several

figures. Although his drawing of a nude celebrant holding

strips of goatskin was clearly not the model for Houdon's Priest

of the Lupercalia, it is conceivable that a class on the religious

rituals of ancient Rome sparked the sculptor's interest in this

unusual subject.

ULRIK E D. MATHIES

2. Nicolas Coustou, Apollo, ca. 1713-1714, marble, Musée du Louvre, Pans.

83
Alternate views of cat. 5

3. Louis de Châtillon, Ludi Lupercali, 1659, etching,

Instituto nazionale per la gráfica, Rome, Stone di Romulo

e Remo, plate without number (FC 4607, vol. 26 M18).

84
EARL Y WORK S

PROVENANC E

Sent by Houdon to Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha in July 1772 and incorporated into the collection of plaster casts at Schloss Friedenstein; possibly

identical with "Ein Silen die Becken schlagend" mentioned under "Cap: III.

An kleinen Modellen, antik und modern" in the collection's earliest known

inventory, "Verzeichniss der im sogenannten Antiken-Saale befindlichen

Abgusse, Biisten pp." (undated, ThStA Gotha, no. 63, ca. 1804-1827, fol. 6r),

no. 21; in 1835 recorded in Rathgeber 1835, 49; listed as "Ein Priester des

Bachus" in "Catalog der Sammlung der Gips-Abgüsse" (Schlossmuseum

Gotha, 1845, no. 44); and as a running male figure in later inventories:

Eduard Wolfgang, "Verzeichniss der Abgusse antiker und moderner Bildhauerarbeiten im Herzogl: Antiken-Cabinet zu Gotha" (Schlossmuseum

Gotha, 1857, no. 111.91): "Mànnliche laufende Figur"; and Wolfgang 1869,

23, no. IV.49, as "Mànnliche Figur, laufend, von Houdon (?)."

Bronze

Mentioned in Houdon's autograph list of his own works from ca. 1784 (Vitry

i9O7b, 197), no. 10: "Un figure sur 2 pieds de hauteur représentant un prêtre

des fêtes lupercales, morcau dagrée [sic] à l'académie, et a été exécuté en

bronze." Apparently cast after 1777, it remained in the artist's possession

(see his mémoire to Bachelier of n Oct. 1794, in Réau 1964,1:99: "A mon

retour [de Rome], pour mon morceau de réception, un Morphée en marbre

demi-nature; depuis un Prêtre des Lupercales en bronze, à moy") until his

studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795, 12, no. 64, under "Figures et bustes en bronze":

"Un Prêtre des fêtes Lupercales, il tient d'une main des couroyes, & de l'autre

un couteau. Cette Figure sur terrasse, porte 31 pouces de haut [78.75 cm]"

(18,000 livres). It resurfaced in the [Lucien-François] Feuchère père sale,

Paris, 29 Nov. 1824, n, no. 14: "Un prêtre des fêtes Lupercales, seul bronze

existant de ce modèle. 31 pouces" (543 or 800 francs, to Lafontaine).

EXHIBITION S

Paris, Salon of 1769 (not in cat.; see text above and Réau 1923,41-52); Berlin

1955, 68, ill. p. 26; Duisburg 1987,138, no. 86, ill. p. 139; Gotha 1989 (not

in cat).

Drawing

Saint-Aubin sketched the figure in his copy of the Salon catalogue of 1769

(see fig. i; and Dacier 1909-1921, 2:89).

REFERENCE S

L'Année littéraire 5, letter 13 (Paris, 1769), 320 (Deloynes IX, no. 128);

L'Avant-coureur, no. 39 (Paris, 1769), 404 (Deloynes IX, no. 137); Lettre sur

l'exposition... au Salon du Louvre 1769 (Paris, 1769), 49 (Deloynes IX, no.

120); [Daudet de Jossac], Sentiments sur les tableaux exposés au Salon (Paris,

1769), 27 (Deloynes IX, no. 122); [Des Boulmiers], "Exposition...dans le

Salon du Louvre," Mercure de France (Oct. 1969), 360 (Deloynes XLIX, no.

1313); Dierks 1887, 25 n. 2; Vitry 1907^ 151-154; Dacier 1909-1921, 2:89,

pi. 76 garde/verso; Lami 1910-1911, 1:414; Giacometti 1918-1919,1:36;

3:162-163; Réau 1923, 41-52, ill. p. 47; Maillard 1931,15-16, pi. 6; Mansfeld 1955, 38-39, no. 4; Réau 1964,1:38, 41-42, 200-202; 2:11, no. 2, pi.

I; Arnason 1975,15, fig. 61, pi. 8; Schuttwolf 1995,133, no. 47, ill. p. 172.

RELATE D WORK S

Only extant version. A copy in plaster appeared in the François sale, Paris, 19

June 1777, 5, no. 32: "un jeune Homme courant à la fête des Lupercales, très

belle figure en plâtre; morceau de réception de M. Houdon à l'Académie."

Detail of cat. 5

1. See Christoph Ulf, Das Rômische Lupercalienfest.

Ein Modellfalljur Methodenprobleme in der Altertumswissenschaft (Darmstadt, 1982).

2. Ovid, Fasti, trans, and ed. A. J. Boyle and R. D.

Woodard (London, 2000), 39-40; 2.425-428,445-448.

3. The bronze version in Houdon's studio sale (see

Related Works) was described as holding "strips in one

hand and a knife in the other." These tools are not

identifiable in the plaster.

4. Appendix in the present catalogue, lines 94-101.

5. Ultimately Houdon created the Morpheus (cat. 7)

as his reception piece for full membership in the

Académie royale (see Vitry igoyc, 149-156).

6. See L'Avant-coureur, 404; [Des Boulmiers], 360;

L'Année littéraire, 320; [Daudet de Jossac], 27; and

Lettre sur l'exposition, 49.

7. Today in thé Musée du Louvre (inv. Ma 527); see

D'Après l'antique [exh. cat., Musée du Louvre] (Paris,

2000), 151, no. i, ill. p. 150; and Haskell and Penny

1981, no. 43, 221-224, fig. 115.

8. Inv. CV; see Moreno and Stefani 2000, no, 154,

no. 7, ill.

9. Listed in Réau 1964,1:38, 210. See also Ph. de Chennevieres and Anatole de Montaiglon, eds., "Abecedario

de P. J. Mariette, et autres notes inédites de cet amateur sur les arts et les artistes," AAF 2 (1851-1853), 321;

and 6 (1854-1856), 185.

10. Annibale Canaca e i suoi incisori [exh. cat., Ecole

française] (Rome, 1986), 35, no. XIII/I5, ill.

11. Réau 1964,1:201.

12. Dandré-Bardon must have known Houdon as

an artist after his return from Rome, since a copy of

Houdon's Ecorché appeared in Dandré-Bardon's

posthumous sale, 23 June 1783, no. 21.

13. See Michel-François Dandré-Bardon, Costume des

anciens peuples (Paris, 1772), 1:10, pi. 2.

85

Peasant Girl of Frascati

Dated 1774

White Carrara marble with small gray inclusions

H. 38 cm (with base: 50.7 cm), W. 21 cm

Inscribed on back and proper right edge of truncation: Houdon Sculpsit 1774

Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris (inv. 1.223)

This marble bust of a young girl is a later version of a plaster bust

called the Peasant Girl of Frascati (fig. i), which Houdon submitted to the Salon of 1769—the first Salon in which he participated. The plaster head, along with the other sculptures he

showed at the Salon, had been executed during his time as a

student at the Académie de France in Rome.

After he returned to Paris from Rome in 1768, Houdon

often created multiple versions of his sculptures in marble,

bronze, and plaster. This marble Peasant Girl of Frascati is one

of the earliest instances in which he duplicated a plaster study.

He made two marble busts of the head, the present one dated

1774 and a second one, now in the Hermitage Museum, dated

1775 (see Related Works). The sculptor devoted more attention

to surface texture in the Cognacq-Jay marble than he did in the

plaster, contrasting the smooth, matte skin of the face and neck

with the undulating strands of hair and with the polished coil

of hair wrapped in a striped cloth and held in place with a pin.

Even the underside of the back has been embellished with chiseled radiating lines, a practice Houdon was to repeat in many

of his marble busts.

The Peasant Girl of Frascati is not a true portrait, nor is it a

copy after the antique. It is rather a "tête d'étude" in which the

young sculptor blends an idealized female head inspired by

antique prototypes with the observation of everyday Italian life.

Houdon shipped the plaster version to Duke Ernst II of SaxeGotha in the summer of 1772, and in a letter concerning the

shipment he gives a telling description of the bust:

The head of a woman of frescati [sic], a city 6 leagues

[24 kilometers] from Rome. It was exhibited at the Salon

before last [1769], and can give an idea of the hairstyles

of Italy, not of the first ladies of Rome, who adopt ours,

and who for the most part, exaggerate them to the point

of the ridiculous. I like this kind of hairstyle, which

draws-up all of the hair to the back, then is held in place

by gold pins, silver, and other materials. Their hairstyles

for the day and for the night do not prevent their ears

from growing according to nature's course. This head,

and that of my Ecorché have ears as one should have

them in general.2

Houdon's letter provides a number of valuable insights concerning this early bust and his approach to sculpture. He is preoccupied by and very critical of the excesses and artificiality of

6

•h

87
i. Houdon, Peasant Girl of Frascati, by 1769, plaster, Schlossmuseum Gotha. 2. Houdon, Head of a Vestal, by 1769, plaster, Schlossmuseum Gotha.

French contemporary fashion and of the women in Rome who

imitate it. In contrast, he presents the image of an Italian peasant girl to the duke as an example of the simple, natural beauty

of an ordinary young woman from a town outside of Rome.

While Houdon makes dear that the Peasant Girl of Frascati is not

a portrait, he nonetheless is quite specific about having observed

the hairstyle and the way it complements the natural form of the

ears of the women in Frascati who wear it. He qualifies his

emphasis on the first-hand study from nature by stating that

an artist who simply imitates nature is no better than a welltrained monkey, and that he must choose what is most noble in

her in order to achieve perfection and to elevate the soul.3

For Houdon, antique prototypes were integral to choosing

the most noble aspects of nature. The sculptor's evocation of

an antique ideal is reflected in the frontal pose, regular features,

straight nose, finely shaped eyes and lips, and undraped neck

of the Peasant Girl of Frascati. This type of neoclassical female

head is similar to another plaster bust that Houdon exhibited

at the Salon of 1769 (fig. 2) and later shipped to Gotha, where

it remains today. In his letter to Ernst II he describes it as "A

study of a head, that one can call a Vestal, she has a veil on her

head and was composed and made in Rome. She is in my studio, sketched in marble." As with the Peasant Girl of Frascati,

the plaster Head of a Vestal has lightly incised eyes. The roughedout marble version of the Vestal that he said was in his studio in

1772 and that he must have finished later is probably identical

with the Head of a Vestal, dated 1788, now in the Louvre.

ANN E L. POULET

88
E A R L Y W O RK S

PROVENANC E

Collection of Markus von Schuetzenau-Trenck, Taberhof (Steiermark), Austria, in 1910 (see Berlin 1910); "il est ensuite passé en France et se trouvait,

peu avant la guerre, chez l'antiquaire Friedel" (Giacometti 1929, 2:200-

201); listed in thé archives of thé Musée Cognacq-Jay as coming from Azura

Temple (neither Friedel nor Azura Temple is found in the Bottins commerciaux for Paris in 1908-1918, and both remain unverified); acquired by

Ernest Cognacq (1839-1928), 12 June 1918, for 250,000 francs through

Mme Beque, one of his agents, according to an unpublished inventory from

1923-1924 in the archives of the Musée Cognacq-Jay; bequeathed with the

rest of his collection to the Fondation Cognacq-Jay and the city of Paris.

EXHIBITION S

Berlin 1910,25,47, no. 238, fig. 12 (see also 2nd rev. éd., 30, no. 12); London

1972, 247-248, no. 382.

Signature on cat. 6

REFERENCE S

Giacometti 1819-1919, 3:34-36; Giacometti 1929, 2: 200-201; Edouard

Jonas, Collections léguées à la ville de Paris par Ernest Cognacq (Paris, 1930), 63,

no. 223; Worcester 1964, 4; Bogyay 1964, no, 129 nn. 37-39, fig. 2; Réau

1964,1:216-217; 2:57, no. 277C, pi. CLXIII, 61; Thomas von Bogyay, review

of Réau 1964, in Zeitschriftjur Kunstgeschichte 31, no. i (1968), 76; François

Periset, "LAge néo-classique. Les Expositions de Londres, 1972," Dix-huitième

siècle 5 (1973), 371; Arnason 1975, 13, 17, 30, 37, 102-103, 122, fig. 63;

Schuttwolf 1995,136-137.

Back view of cat. 6

RELATE D WORK S

Plaster

Schlossmuseum Gotha (inv. P 40) (see fig. i); H. 39.4 cm (with base: 52.2

cm), W. 23 cm. The bust differs from the Cognacq-Jay marble in that the

irises and pupils of the eyes are lightly incised rather than blank, there is no

signature or date, and the finish on the back of the truncation is smooth

rather than incised. Houdon executed the plaster in Rome, exhibited it at

the Salon of 1769, and shipped it to the court at Gotha in July 1772 (see

Appendix, lines 404-406). It has remained in the collection at Schloss

Friedenstein since that time. See Schuttwolf 1995,136-137, no. 49.

Marble

The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (inv. NH CK. 374); H. 39 cm

(with base: 50.9 cm), W. 22 cm; inscribed across back edge of truncation:

"HOUDON. F. 1775." The dimensions of this bust correspond very closely

to those of both the plaster and the marble at the Musée Cognacq-Jay. The

truncation is squared at shoulder level in back, as is that of the plaster,

whereas the Paris bust is rounded at the shoulders. The backs of both the

Hermitage and Gotha busts have a smooth finish, in contrast to the radiating striations on the back of the Cognacq-Jay bust. The eyes are blank. Réau

claims this bust was exhibited at the Salon of 1775, listed in the catalogue

(39, no. 261) under "Plusieurs Tetes ou Portraits en marbre, sous le même

Numéro" (Réau 1914, 43, 52). It was in the collection of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Golitsyn (1804-1860); inherited by his son Sergei Mikhailovich Golitsyn (1843-after 1892). The latter opened a private museum in Moscow

in which the bust was included. See Ukazatel golitzinskogo Museja (Moscow,

1882), 46, nos. 587, 588. The author is grateful to Dr. Ljuba Savinskaya,

Moscow, for providing this information. In 1886 Golitsyn sold his collection

to Emperor Alexander III, and it was taken to St. Petersburg (Réau 1917,139).

i. Although none of the sculptures submitted by

Houdon is listed in the Salon cat. of 1769, this bust

can be identified from one of the reviews, Reflexions sur

quelques morceaux de peinture et de sculpture exposés

au Ballon du Louvre... (Paris, 1769), 27: "M. Houdon

a exposé une statue de Saint Jean-Baptiste... .On ne

quitte qu'avec regret, le buste d'une paysane de Frescaci [sic].. .du même artiste" (see Réau 1923,44-52).

2. See Appendix, lines 404-414.

3. See Appendix, lines 75-77.

4. Inv. P 35; see Schuttwolf 1995,134-135, no. 48.

5. Appendix, lines 331-334.

6. Inv. RF 3994; see Louvre cat. 1998, 2:432, ill.

89

Morpheus

Dated 1777

White marble

H. 36.5 cm, W. 70.5 cm, D. 35.8 cm

Inscribed on back of plinth: A. HOUDON F. A! 1777

Musée du Louvre, Paris, département des sculptures (inv. RF 3993)

7

The Morpheus concluded Houdon's long application process for

membership in the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Houdon had won a third-place medal in the quarterly competition held in June 1756 before earning first prize in sculpture

in 1761. After three years at the Ecole royale des élèves protégés,

then a stay at the Académie de France in Rome between 1764

and 1768, he presented a number of works he had done in Italy

to the Académie royale on 23 July 1769. The following month

he showed these sculptures to the public at his first Salon, including the Saint Bruno, Saint John the Baptist, and Priest of the

Lupercalia (cats. 3-5). On 31 December 1770 Houdon presented

to the academy "a sketch of the piece that had been ordered from

him for admission, which depicts a Morpheus"; hence back in

Paris he had been required to come up with a new sculpture.

At the Salon of 1771 Houdon exhibited a "life-size model" of

his Morpheus (no. 279), but it was fully six years later that he

displayed his admission piece in marble, returning to a smaller

format, and was accepted as a member of the academy.

The Schlossmuseum Gotha houses a large plaster Morpheus (fig. i), which is certainly the one from the Salon of 1771.

There were strong ties between Houdon and the court of

Gotha at that time. This magnificent plaster, impossible to

transport safely, had a broken right foot, as did the Louvre

marble; the foot was glued back onto the Gotha plaster at some

point, or simply remade. Houdon, in executing his admission

piece, remained faithful to the model; indeed, no significant

variation can be discerned.

The Salon catalogue of 1771 provides the key to understanding this work: "Morpheus, one of the children of the god of Sleep

and his agent. He is the most skillful of all the [gods of] dreams

in taking on the manner, the appearance, and the voice of those

he wants to represent. It is he who was sent by that god to Alcyone in the guise of her husband." Ovid describes his appearing

to the unfortunate Alcyone to inform her of her husband's death:

"On gliding wings (one could not hear them stir) / Morpheus

made way to Alcyone's city. / He dropped the wings and took

the mask of Ceyx." The name Morpheus, derived from the Greek

for "form," indicates his function: he takes the form of human

beings and appears to them in their dreams. Houdon depicts

him sleeping but with wings on the alert, just before he assumes

the image dictated by the dream to which he must submit.

Denis Diderot, who apparently did not reread the Metamorphoses, was irritated by a subject he believed Houdon had

misunderstood:

9

1

4-
i. Houdon, Morpheus, 1771, plaster, Schlossmuseum Gotha.

2. Charles Le Brun, Sleep, 1663-1668, ceiling compartment, Palais du Louvre, Paris, Gallery of Apollo.

92
EARL Y WO R K S

Once more, it is unfortunately too academic a figure.

That mania always enslaves the artist and saps his reason; it binds him strictly to the customary rules of his art

and keeps from him the memory of classical beauties

and the Ancients' close observation of the age and condition of persons. Morpheus... is a young man, one who

cannot have the body of a man of forty... .This sleeping

Morpheus does not show the effects of the languidness

that sleep lends to flesh; his legs are too much in control of the position they are holding, and so on. As a matter of fact, why is he sleeping? He is Morpheus, but he

is not Sleep, he is only his messenger—that is, always

ready to go anywhere and in any disguise the master

orders. That idea alone ought to have provided the artist

with a figure for an ingenious composition, which the

wings and poppy would have sufficed to make clear.

In any case, the figure is well drawn.

Back view of cat. 7

To be sure, the god of dreams is sleeping, but it is only then

that his true character can be seen, for as soon as he becomes

active, he assumes a different identity. Houdon has taken care to

depict a young man, avoiding any confusion with the iconography of Sleep. The latter is traditionally represented as a sleeping

old man, as Charles Le Brun painted him on the vault of the

Q

Gallery of Apollo at the Louvre (fig. 2), a work the young Houdon

must have seen nearly every day as a student at the Ecole royale

des élèves protégés. In the Morpheus the leaves and poppy

flowers—which Ovid describes outside the doors to the cave of

Sleep—are arranged in a garland, not in a veil, as in the painting.

3. Jean- Bernard Restout, Sleep, 1771, oil on canvas, Cleveland Museum of Art.

Houdon's figure did not please Diderot, who savaged a painting of Sleep by Jean-Bernard Restout, displayed at the same

9

Salon (fig. 3). Yet other critics praised Houdon's talent for capturing the truth of nature: "The figure is very beautiful and has

something celestial about him. His attitude, his contours, the

softness of his members, correspond very well to the artist's

idea. There is a marvelous sweetness in his sleep, through which

we can discern a living being, whose breathing seems to be

perceptible"; "M. Houdon's Morpheus... cannot be mistaken

for anything else. This is no ordinary drowsiness; it is a perfect

suspension of all the senses, a profound weightiness, a total abandon, the most absolute annihilation, which... is only the natural

state of that deity. Only his wings seem to have some action, some

movement in them still, to express, no doubt, in the midst of his

torpor, his dominion over nature as a whole." In fact, the large

wings, "cumbersome... as they are not folded, seem to indicate a

waking state." Houdon may have taken liberties with the form

of Morpheus' wings: "The ancients gave him butterfly wings, a

symbol of lightness. The artist was content to represent him with

bird's wings, more favorable to a rendering in sculpture." But

the idea of butterfly wings is not found in Ovid.

All of these reviews enhanced the reception of the work:

"If M. Houdon slips into the crowd headed for the Salon to pick

up what is being said about his work, he will surely be pleased

and flattered to hear his Morpheus praised." The sculpture,

installed in the Gallery of Apollo, directly inspired the young Rus14

sian student Prokofiev, who frequented the academy school.

93
Quatremère de Quincy, usually critical of Houdon, saw in

his Morpheus the basis for a renewal of art closer to the classical

models: "A very good correspondence between truth without

pettiness and nobility without affectation boded well for the

new direction that art was soon to take." Houdon may have had

in mind some classical model or perhaps Alessandro Algardi's

Cupid (Gallería Borghese, Rome), who falls asleep amid poppies. At the Salon of 1771, he had shown "two heads of young

men, one wearing a myrtle wreath, the other with a ribbon

wrapped around it." These heads have since disappeared and

thus offer no possibility of comparison with works of antiquity

or with the head of Morpheus. In any case, Houdon avoided conceiving the head as that of an ephebe: the soft whiskers along

the jaw extending almost to the chin, while characteristic of a

faun, may represent a physical detail of his live model and give

the figure a modern and natural touch.

The artist took particular care in the composition and execution of this figure, which appears completely three-dimensional when viewed from the front; the body is conceived in an

unbroken contour, deeply undercut and casting a shadow. The

face is dearly traced in profile. The back, by contrast, has hardly

been touched: one feels fully the mass of marble. Although the

left foot and knee are slightly lifted, the rest of the body, from

the left thigh to the right arm, constitutes a compact whole, of a

piece with the drapery and the rock. This impression is accentuated by the fact that the head is folded deeply into the crook of

the arm. Houdon, however, tried to temper the effect by carving

wings with very pure lines; the sharp form evokes butterfly wings,

though naturally the feathers do not. The extreme delicacy of the

drill holes is also found in the fine traces of the pointed chisel on

the stone and the small strokes rendering the texture of the young

man's skin. In his admission piece Houdon wanted to show his

expertise in working with marble, handling his tools with ease,

creating contrasts between the velvety texture of the drapery, the

softness of the flesh, and the roughness of the rock.

PROVENANC E

Admission piece for the Académie royale, 26 July 1777: "Jean-Antoine

Houdon, sculpteur... a fait apporter le morceau qui lui avait été ordonné

pour sa réception, représentant Morphée. Les voix prises à l'ordinaire,

l'Académie a reçu et reçoit le sieur Houdon académicien" (Procès-verbaux,

8:273). The sculpture, belonging to the Académie royale, was in the Gallery

of Apollo at the Louvre in 1781. Confiscated Aug. 1793» during the Revolution; assigned to the Ecole spéciale de peinture et sculpture, 19 June 1798;

and placed at the Musée des monuments français, probably in Mar. 1808;

it remained in the archive room of the Ecole des beaux-arts after 1816.

Reclaimed by the Louvre in 1851; assigned to that museum in 1866, but not

listed in the inventory at that date (inventoried in 1986).

EXH I BITION S

Paris, Salon cat. 1777, no. 256: "cette figure, en marbre, est le morceau de

réception de l'auteur"; London 1972, no. 391; Duisburg 1989, 30-35, 275,

no. 4, ill.

REFERENCE S

Dezallier d'Argenville, Description sommaire des ouvrages de peinture, sculpture et gravure exposés dans les salles de l'Académie royale (Paris, 1781) (Paris,

1893; reprint Nogent-le-Roi, 1991), 154; Quatremère de Quincy 1834, 393;

Montaiglon and Duplessis 1855,167-169, 442; Délerot and Legrelle 1857,

39-40,179; Vitry I9O7C, 149-156, ill. (the right foot is already missing);

Hart and Biddle 1911,13, ill. p. 12; Giacometti 1929,1:16, ill. 2:259; Fontaine

1910,185, no. 428; Marguerite Charageat, "Le Fleuve et le Sommeil. Etudes

en vue des morceaux de réception à l'Académie de Caffieri et de Houdon,"

Bulletin des musées de France, no. 5 (June 1950), 112-116; Réau 1964,

1:220-223; 2:13, no. 8, pi. 10, n; Arnason 1975,18,37,109-110 n. 75, pi.

9-10; Louvre cat. 1998,432, ill.

RELATE D WORK S

Plasters

Schlossmuseum Gotha (inv. P 26); plaster; H. 116 cm, W. 156.9 cm, D. 108.5

cm; exhibited at the Salon of 1771, no. 279: "Modèle de grandeur naturelle ";

see Schuttwolf 1995,138-139, no. 50, ill.

Houdon's studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795, no. 104 (H. 62.1 cm): "modèle en

plâtre."

Drawing

Gabriel de Saint-Aubin sketched the work in the margin of his copy of the

Salon catalogue of 1777 (Dacier 1909-1921, vol. 4, n.p., ill.).

GUILHE M SCHER F

94
EARL Y WORK S

1. Antoine Cahen, "Les Prix de quartier à l'Académie

royale de peinture et de sculpture, "BSHAF (1993), 74.

2. "The Académie, after taking the usual vote and

acknowledging his abilities, approved his presentation.

The director will prescribe to him what he must do to

be admitted" (Procès-verbaux, 8:19).

3. Daudet de Jossan, Sentimens sur les tableaux exposés

au Salon [de 1769] (Deloynes IX, no. 122; MacWilliam

4. Procès-verbaux, 8:59. It is not known whether at that

date this was considered a sanction (as if the works on

which acceptance was based were judged too weak).

In the 17605 and 17703 Pierre- François Berruer, Félix

Lecomte, and Martin-Claude Monot also had to create

new models, whereas Louis-Simon Boizot, CharlesAntoine Bridan, Jean-Baptiste-Cyprien d'Huez, and

Louis- Philippe Mouchy were at the same time allowed

to use a model they had submitted for acceptance.

Because new members increasingly neglected to

execute their admission pieces, a new regulation

in 1785 stipulated: "the artists, accepted on the basis

of several pieces executed by them, will always be

obliged to present a new piece for admission."

5. Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Horace Gregory

(New York, 1958), 317 (11:633-676).

6. Pierre Grimai, Dictionnaire de la mythologie grecque

et romaine (Paris, 1986), 303.

7. Diderot (éd. i995b), 241-242 (Salon de 1771).

8. Jacques de Favanne very nearly reproduced Le

Brun's old man sleeping in a 1733 engraving, whose

title, nonetheless, was Morpheus; see Carter E. Foster,

"Jean Bernard Restout's Sleep—Figure Study: Painting

and Drawing from Life at the French Royal Academy

of Painting and Sculpture," Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 3 (1998), 64, fig. 22. In the present author's

view, a sketchily done terracotta of Sleep (Louvre cat.

1998,432, ill.), most likely done after the Cochin and

Gravelot engraving published in their Iconologie par

figures (1774-1781), must be removed from Houdon's

body of work; oddly, the artist avoided representing the

wings of the sleeping old man.

9. "Figure study.. .which was not studied after a model

posing naturally (Ignoble sleeper with the look of a

torture victim; without vigor, poorly drawn, you can't

make out what it is. Oh, what a vile beast, don't you

think, M. Houdon? I'm betting you'll kick that out of

the Académie and the Salons)." The comments within

parentheses are Diderot's; the rest were written by an

anonymous collaborator; see Diderot (ed. 1995), 128

and 195 (Salon de 1771); and Foster 1998.

10. Mémoires secrets. Lettre sur le Salon de 1771 and

Mémoires secrets. Lettre sur le Salon de 1777 (see Fort

1999, 95,186; and MacWilliam 1991, 217).

11. Montaiglon and Duplessis 1855,168.

12. Mercure de France, Oct. 1771 (MacWilliam 1991, 270).

13. L'Année littéraire 5 (1771), letter 13 (MacWilliam 1991,

209).

14. The Flight ofActaeon, 1785, by Prokofiev (Museum

of the Academy, St. Petersburg) is directly inspired

by another of Houdon's works, Priest of the Lupercalia

(cat. 5).

15. Quatremère de Quincy 1834, 393.

95

1991.1960

8

Sophie Arnould (1740-1802)

Dated 1775

White marble on white marble base

H. 67.0 cm (with base: 81 cm), W. 51.0 cm, D. 29.5 cm

Inscribed on back: SOPHIE ARNOULD, Houdon F. 1775

Musée du Louvre, Paris, département des sculptures, Gift of Madame E. Stern and of her children, 1947 (inv. RF 2596)

"Rare creatures are they, and strewn across time at distant intervals, these women who, while alive, are the scandal of a century

and, once dead, are its smile." Thus the Concourt brothers

open their book on Sophie Arnould, evoking in one line the

memory of one such woman, who enchanted Paris and the

ancien régime.

Sophie Arnould was born in Paris in 1740 to a bourgeois

family (her father was a hotelier) with five children. She took

music and singing lessons at an early age and, under the patronage of the princesse de Conti, performed at the church of the

aristocratic convent of Panthémont. Presented to the queen,

Marie Leszczynska, at Versailles, she debuted at the Opéra

(Académie royale de musique) on 15 December 1757. Her

fame lasted a dozen years, fed by a tumultuous love life. She

had a stormy affair with Louis Félicité de Brancas, comte de

Lauraguais (with whom she had two children), was kept by the

prince d'Hénin (captain of the guards for the comte d Artois),

dallied with the prince de Ligne, loved the architect FrançoisJoseph Bélanger (whom she recommended, in fact, to the other

three), and had a scandalous liaison with the actress Mile Raucourt. Refined and libertine, maliciously called a "courtesan,"

possessing a devastating wit, she welcomed into her home a

select circle of artists and intellectuals. After she retired from

the stage in 1779, following a fairly long decline (marked,

notably, by the sale of her collections in 1778), she left Paris

amid financial difficulties. Struggling to make ends meet under

the Revolution and the Consulate, she was aided from time to

time by her former lovers Lauraguais and especially Bélanger.

Early in her career, Arnould had excelled at the traditional

French repertoire, especially the works of Rameau. Her musical

talent—despite a voice lacking in depth—as well as her elegance

and expressiveness were widely celebrated: "she is the most

beautiful asthmatic I've ever heard sing," said Abbé Ferdinando

Galiani. Her last triumphs came in 1774, when she performed

the starring roles in two Cluck operas: Orphée et Eurydice and

Iphigénie en Aulide. The dauphine, Marie Antoinette, attended the

premiere of Iphigénie on 19 April 1774, leading an enthusiastic

claque. Cluck reportedly declared: "Without the charms of Mile

Arnoult's [sic] inflections and declamation, my Iphigénie would

9

never have come to France." It was "the last great evening of

her life in the theater."10

Houdon did his portraits of Sophie Arnould and Christoph

Willibald Cluck (see cat. 10) at the same time: the two busts—

the singer's in marble—were shown together at the Salon of

97

+
1775- The sculptor worked very quickly: his contract with

Arnould is dated 5 April, and the marble was ready for exhibition

on 25 August. This Salon, one of Houdon's most important,

included his model of a chapel for the duchess of Saxe-Gotha as

well as portraits of ministers Miromesnil (cat. 30) and Turgot,

aristocrats Mme du Cayla and Mme de la Houze, and members

of the financial bourgeoisie such as Mme His. The marbles

of Arnould and Mme His (private collection, United States),12

like the imposing female portrait of 1778 of Mme Girardot de

Vermenoux (cat. 31), are elongated busts ending at the waistline,

a format that Houdon adopted from Jean-Baptiste II Lemoyne's

showy portraits.

The Sophie Arnould was noticed at the Salon, where its

resemblance to Arnould's features was praised less than its personification of her in the role: "What beauty, what sweetness,

what unctuousness in Mile Arnould, depicted as Iphigenia! She

has the bandages, the crescents, and all the attributes that designate the moment of sacrifice at which he painted her."

"Abbot: 'Beautiful expression, excellent choice, superb head.'

Fanfale: 'A bit flattering, Abbot, you have to admit; it's not a very

good likeness'; Abbot: 'What does it matter? Does that take anything away from its beauty? Resemblance takes away nothing

and adds nothing to the artist's talent.... For the portraits of

kings, a lack of resemblance would be a very great flaw.... But,

as for an actress, it hardly matters whether she is a bit more or

a bit less beautiful.'14"

Houdon created a strong image of the heroine at the moment

her life is to be sacrificed. His head of Iphigenia conveys a lofty

feeling, something like resignation, which recalls the "tête d'expression" by Jacques-Louis David in 1773 (fig. i). Arnould

i.Jacques-Louis David,

Grief, 1773, pastel, Ecole

nationale supérieure

des beaux-arts, Paris.

excelled in the tragic roles: "I have not seen combined in a single actress more grace, truth, feeling, nobility of expression, serious study, intelligence, and warmth all at once; I have not seen

more beautiful grief; her entire physiognomy paints it, renders

all its horror, but her face does not lose the slightest trace of her

beauty. " With her luxurious hair piled high, her sorrowful eyes

fixed on the sky, a tear running down her cheek, and her bare,

palpitating breast, Houdon's Iphigenia wears a costume that—

with its antique flavor and its sash — in no way resembles what

the 1774 audience might have seen. Onstage, Arnould wore a

"long-sleeved wispy gown enveloped in a large veil, tragic handkerchief in hand." Creating this expressive portrait, Houdon

may have been thinking of Lemoyne's MUe Clairon (fig. 2).

Houdon's work on this bust is masterful. Intertwined with

the locks of hair, admirably treated as masses with fine incisions evoking the strands, are roses and rows of beads. The oval

face framed by the hair emphasizes the eyes, rendered melodramatically: the eyeballs are prominent, and the irises deeply

carved to accentuate the gaze. The loosely parted lips, showing

the teeth, and the individual hairs lightly etched above the breast

attest to Houdon's fondness for realistic detail. The hollowedout back with the large central reinforcement, necessitated by

the bust's mass, displays the artist's customary fine and regular striations. The marble Houdon used for this private commission, no doubt provided by one of his usual contractors, is

not of perfect quality (especially compared with the superb white

marble provided by the king's warehouses for Mme Adélaïde',

cat. 51); many gray veins streak the work, a few of them unfortunately placed (on the forehead, below the lips). Stains and

small holes were originally camouflaged by stucco restorations,

which have since disappeared.

Arnould, who was sensitive to the art of sculpture, liked

this bust and displayed it prominently in her home. When

Voltaire came to see her during his last stay in Paris in 1778,

"at the age of eighty-two, [he] made his way to her home

and wrote these lines about her bust: 'Her grace, her talents,

distinguished her name; / She charmed everything, even jealousy; / Alcibiades would have seen in her Aspasia, Maurice

Lecouvreur, and Gourville Ninon!'" She still owned the bust

during the Revolution, when agents of the revolutionary committee came to her home in Luzarches: "one of the members

noticed on a console a marble bust depicting her in the role

of Iphigenia; he believed it was the bust of Marat and, taking

the priestess' scarf for that of their employer, they withdrew,

very edified by the actress' patriotism."22

98
FIGURE S I N TH E ART S

2. Jean-Baptiste II Lemoyne, Mlle Clairon, 1761, marble, Musée de la

Comédie-Française, Paris.

Arnould may have met Houdon through Bélanger, who was

a designer at Les Menus Plaisirs in 1767, working with the sculptor's brother Jacques-Philippe. In her contract with Houdon,

she stipulated that at least thirty copies of her bust in plaster,

finished by the sculptor, be distributed to her admirers by the

time of the Salon of 1775. Houdon could sell her additional

copies, but no more than twenty. Only one of these plasters is

identified today: unsigned, undated, and, until very recently,

completely ignored in the storerooms of the Goethe-Nationalmuseum in Weimar, it is in an admirable, indeed miraculous,

state of preservation (cat. 9).

GUILHE M SCHERF

PROVENANC E

Commissioned by Sophie Arnould in contract of 5 Apr. 1775 (published first

in L'Amateur d'autographes [Feb. 1907], 35-36; then in Giacometti 1929,

1:133;

 and Réau 1964,1:83). Collection of sitter until revolutionary period,

then probably sold during her lifetime. M. Véron collection sale, 22-23 Mar.

1858, no. 64 (13,800 francs); acquired, along with Houdon's bust of Mme Victoire, by Richard Seymour Conway, fourth marquess of Hertford (1800-

1870), and displayed at the château de Bagatelle, outside Paris; bequeathed

to his illegitimate son, Sir Richard Wallace (1818-1890), Paris (see posthumous inventory, 13-14 Aug. 1890, Archives of Paris, 048 E 3/76); by inheritance to his wife, Lady Wallace (1819-1897); bequeathed to Sir John Murray Scott (1834-1912; her husband's secretary and her advisor; see his posthumous inventory, 16 Feb. 1912,2 rue Laffite, Paris, in WCA; the author wishes

to thank Robert Wenley for this reference); and to Josephine Victoria SackvilleWest, Lady Sackville (1862-1936); sold through Galerie Jacques Seligmann,

Paris, in 1914 for "more than a million" (Giacometti 1929,2:4). Edgar Stern

collection (before 1925); given to the Louvre in his memory and in gratitude

to the Commission de récupération artistique, by Mme Edgar Stern and her

children, i Oct. 1947.

EXHIBITION S

Paris, Salon of 1775, no. 257; Paris 1865, no. 3219 (loaned by Hertford); L'Art

du XVIIIe siècle [exh. cat., Galerie Georges Petit] (Paris, 1883-1884), no. 251;

Exposition de l'art fiançais sous Louis XIV et sous Louis XV [exh. cat., Maison

Quantin] (Paris, 1888), no. 76; Paris 1894, no. 211; Paris 1928, no. i, ill.;

Vingt ans d'acquisitions au Musée du Louvre, 1947-1967 [exh. cat., Orangerie

des Tuileries] (Paris, 1967-1968), 101, no. 312.

REFERENCE S

[Albéric Deville d'Angers], Arnoldiana ou Sophie Arnould et ses contemporaines; recueil choisi d'anecdotes piquantes, de réparties et de bons mots de Mlle

Arnould... (Paris, 1813), 93-94; Délerot et Legrelle 1857,50,182; Vitry 1907^

202, no. 58; Gustave Babin, "La 'Collection Wallace' de Paris," L'Illustration,

no. 3722 (27 June 1914), 575, ill.; André Linzeler, "Les Expositions. L'Art au

théâtre," Beaux-Arts (15 Dec. 1925), 344-345; Vitry i928b, 60-61; Giacometti

1929, 1:133, 134, ill., 2:3-5; Michèle Beaulieu, "Le Buste de la cantatrice

Sophie Arnould, par Houdon," Bulletin des musées de France, no. 7 (Aug.

1947), 22-24, ill.; Cecil 1950,172, fig. 25; Réau 1964,1:376-378, 2:25,

no. 81, pi. XXXVII; Cecil 1965,454-455, fig. 10; Arnason 1975,35-36,109

n. 73, fig. 79, pi. 25; Thomine 1997,126-127, ^ Louvre cat. 1998, 430;

Sauerlànder 2002, 27, fig. 10.

RELATE D WORK S

Plasters

Some are listed in eighteenth-century sales catalogues as finished (réparés)

by the artist (the same work may have been auctioned several times): [Mme

de Cosse] sale, ii Nov. 1778, no. 124; [Le Brun] sale, n Dec. 1780, no. 254;

[marquis de Chamgrand, de Proth, Saint-Maurice, Bouilliac] sale, 20-24

Mar. 1787, no. 251 (as CafBeri); Louis-Antoine-Auguste de Rohan-Chabot

sale, 8-9 Dec. 1807, no. 83.

A plaster was exhibited at the Société des beaux-arts, Montpellier, Dec.

1779, no. 181 (see Stein 1913, 402; and Claparède [éd. 1993], 42), lent by

Abraham Fontanel, organizer of the society and curator of its collections.

Aubin-Louis Millin, Voyage dans les départemens du midi de la France (Paris,

1811), 4:315 n. i, records its presence in Montpellier in i8n.

A plaster is listed by Gaston Brière as being in the Brissac collection in

the early twentieth century (handwritten note in the Louvre's sculpture

department files).

Goethe-Nationalmuseum, Weimar (see cat. 9); superb example in an

extraordinary state of preservation.

Musée de Picardie, Amiens; damaged, restored by its owner, the sculptor Gustave Deloye (1838-1899); face and bust in marble, drapery and

restorations in plaster; H. 85 cm, W. 50 cm; bequeathed to the museum by

Deloye 12 Dec. 1898 (Giacometti 1929 2:4). This was perhaps the "buste en

marbre blanc, grandeur naturelle, de Sophie Arnould, d'après Houdon,"

cited in a Paris sale, 22 May 1897, no. 55.

99
Signature on cat. 8

Boilly paintings

A plaster is depicted in Boilly's paintings of the sculptor's studio (cat. 66),

on the right-hand shelf. The work is not listed in the posthumous sale of

the contents of Houdon's studio in 1828.

Prints

A print clearly inspired by Houdon's bust, Mile Arnould / Role d'Iphigenie en

Aulide I Dans I'opera de ce nom, unsigned and undated (BNEst, N2, microfilm

D 077780).

Engraving by Antoine-Achille Bourgeois de la Richardiere after a lost portrait presumably by Maurice-Quentin de La Tour (BNEst, N2, microfilm

D 077781) served as a frontispiece for the Arnoldiana by Deville d'Angers.

1. Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt, Sophie

Arnould d'apres sa correspondance et ses memoires inedits

(Paris, 1859), 5-

2. See Jean Stern, A I'ombre de Sophie Arnould. FrancoisJoseph Belanger, architecte des Menus Plaisirs, premier

architects du comte d'Artois (Paris, 1930), 1:18-24, 41,

43; and Martine Constans, "Le Gout d'un prince a la

fin de 1'Ancien Regime. L'CEuvre de Belanger et de son

equipe dans la decoration des batiments du comte

d'Artois," in Clodion et la sculpture fran$aise de la Jin du

XVI He siecle, papers of the colloquium organized by

the Louvre (Paris, 1993), 424.

3. Memoires de la baronne d'Oberkirch..., ed. Suzanne

Burkard (Paris, 1989), 445.

4. Bombelles (ed. 1977), 1:62; and Memoires secrets,

29:190-191, 6 Aug. 1785.

5. Memoires de [Jean-Nicolas] Dufort de Cheverny, ed.

Jean-Pierre Guicciardi (Paris, 1990), 318.

6. Including d'Alembert, Diderot, Helvetius, the baron

d'Holbach, Moncrif, and Rousseau (Stern 1930, 2:183);

see also Memoires du comte Akxandre de Tilly..., ed.

Christian Melchior-Bonnet (Paris, 1986), 443.

7. Arnould's moving correspondence with her "good

angel" was unearthed by the Goncourts.

8. Memoires secrets, 7:161-162.

9. Letter from Belanger to Jean-Antoine Chaptal,

30 June 1802; quoted in Adolphe Lance, Dictionnaire

des architectesjranc.ais (Paris, 1872), 1:58.

10. Goncourt and Goncourt 1859, 60.

11. Houdon mistakenly placed the bust of Sophie

Arnould under the year 1778 in his autograph list

of ca. 1784 (Vitry 1907^ 202), no. 58: "Le buste en

marbre de Melle Arnould dans le rolle d'Iphigenie

en Thauride [5/4"

12. Reau 1964, 2:33, no. 131, pi. 62. A beautiful

plaster, recently restored, is in the Musee des arts

decoratifs, Paris.

13. Memoires secrets. Lettre sur le Salon de 1775

(Fort 1999,148).

14. Entretiens sur I'exposition des tableaux de I'annee 1775

(Deloynes X, no. 164; MacWilliam 1991, 240).

15. The "tete d'expression" competition offered one

of the most coveted prizes at the academy.

16. Journal et memoires de Charles Colle..., intro. and

notes by Honore Bonhomme (Paris, 1868), 2:147.

17. The sash, adorned with alternating stars and

crescent moons (alluding to the cult of Diana), recalls

the scarf with crescent moons on the Iphigenia by

Houdon's teacher, Michel-Ange Slodtz; see Francois

Souchal, Les Slodtz sculpteurs et decorateurs du Roi

(1685-1764) (Paris, 1967), pi. 16. It also anticipates

the sash on Houdon's Bust of Diana (see cat. 36).

18. Beaulieu 1947, 24. See Louis-Rene Boquet's charming watercolors in Costumes de ballets (BNEst, Tb. 2ob).

19. Two paintings in the Wallace Collection are no

longer thought to depict Sophie Arnould; see John

Ingamells, The Wallace Colkction. Catalogue of Pictures,

III. French before 1815 (London, 1989), 3:403, 413, ill.

A miniature in the Panhard collection may portray

Arnould seated at a harpsichord (copy in the Louvre,

inv. RF 219); see Jean-Richard 1994, no. 321, ill.

According to Vigee-Lebrun 1984,1:104: "Mademoiselle

Arnould was not pretty; her mouth marred her face,

and only her eyes gave her a physiognomy on which

was painted the remarkable wit that made her famous."

20. Arnould was applauded as she purchased a terracotta bust of the famous actress Mile Clairon at the sale

of the Randon de Boisset collection, ca. 27 Feb. 1777,

no. 274: "de proportion naturelle, par un artiste savant"

(for 72 francs); see Corr. litteraire, Mar. 1777,11:441.

Reau 1964,1:377, insinuates that she purchased the

bust of her rival in order to destroy it.

21. See the letter from Belanger to Chaptal (Lance

1872,58-59).

22. Amoldiana, 1813, 93-94.

IOO
Sophie Arnould (1740-1802)

1775

White plaster on separate white plaster base

H. 69 cm (with base: 84 cm), W. 55 cm

Goethe-Nationalmuseum, Weimar, Stiftung Weimarer Klassik (inv. KP1/OO253)

A rare example of the beauty of an eighteenth-century plaster

in its original state, this bust of the singer Sophie Arnould is

one of two extant versions of this model (see also cat. 8) and

the only surviving copy in plaster. Forgotten in storage rooms

for one and a half centuries, it is astonishing for its pristine

condition, crisp detail, and untouched surface, which, never

having been obscured by paint layers, reveals considerable

handwork done after casting and the careful removal of all

mold marks.

The provenance of the bust can be traced back directly to

Houdon, whose studio the seventeen-year-old hereditary

prince of Weimar, Carl August, visited in 1775 on the occasion

of his "Kavaliersreise," or educational journey. Carl August's

mother was the cultured Duchess Anna Amalia of SaxeWeimar, née princess of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, who

reigned in her son's stead for sixteen years and had a fundamental interest in the arts. As a subscriber to the Journal de

Paris, she was well-informed about the latest developments

in the Parisian art world; and the sensational success of the

Gluck opera Iphigénie en Aulide, with Sophie Arnould in the

title role, must have prompted her desire to obtain an image

of this singer-actress.

Eager to provide his mother with souvenirs from his trip

to France, Carl August wrote on 18 February 1775 from Strasbourg that "Iphigenia definitely is not found here, but I count

on obtaining it for you in Paris." Nine days later the prince

and his entourage arrived in the French capital, where a range

of activities awaited them, from serious social events to amusing distractions. By the time they visited Houdon's studio on

15 March, Carl August had seen Sophie Arnould in performance, and he had been introduced to the composer Gluck.

Although the prince's purchase of the bust of Gluck (cat. 10)

from Houdon is well documented, it was hitherto unknown

that he also—and apparently at the same time—acquired its

pendant, the bust of Sophie Arnould. In a letter to his mother

dated 16 March, Carl August announced the successful completion of his mission: "I am sending you the Iphigenia that

you requested.3"

Upon its arrival in Weimar, the bust was probably first

installed in Anna Amalia's dowager residence, the Wittumspalais, but was later moved to her summer palace in Tiefurt.

There it found its appropriate setting, in a place that, after the

duchess stepped down as regent at Carl August's eighteenth

birthday, became the site of lively artistic gatherings and

IOI

9

FIGURE S I N TH E ART S

amateur plays. When Anna Amalia died in 1807, Schloss Tiefurt

and its collections lost their significance and fell into neglect,

while the bust of Sophie Arnould was stowed away and the identity of its sitter forgotten.

ULRIK E D. MATHIES

ULRIK E MULLER-HARANG ,

Goethe-National Museum, Weimar

PROVENANC E

Acquired from Houdon in Mar. 1775; recorded in Schloss Tiefurt in 1886

as "Eine Biiste von Gips: Corona Schroter" in a room next to the kitchen

("Inventarium iiber das Grofeherzogliche Schlo£ zu Tiefurt," GSA, GNM

[150] 382, fol. 207, no. 27); unidentified atTiefurt in 1956: "Weibliche Biiste,

mit einer entblofeten Brust, halbgeoffnetem Mund und Rosen im Haar,

reicher Faltenwurf iiber stern-mond-geschmiickter Scharpe; Gipsabgufe von

unbekannt; Hohe m. S. 82 cm" ("Bestandsaufnahmeliste Tiefurt," GNM,

Handbibliothek 102:79, no. 1226); transferred to sculpture storage in the

Goethe-Nationalmuseum; rediscovered and identified in 1999 by Anne L

Poulet and Ulrike D. Mathies.

REFERENCE S

Unpublished.

RELATE D WORK S

See cat. 8.

Back view of cat. 8 Back view of cat. 9

i. See the essay "Houdon and the German Courts" in

the present catalogue.

2. Alfred Bergmann, ed., Briefe des Herzogs Carl August

von Sachsen-Weimar an seine Mutter die Herzogin Anna

Amalia (Jena, 1938), 14, no. 14.

3. Bergmann 1938,16, no. 16.

103

IO

+ Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787)

Dated 1775

Plaster, on separate base and counterbase, all painted greenish black to simulate antique bronze

H. 75.8 cm (with base: 94.1 cm), W. 62.4 cm

Cast in plaster on face of counterbase: Houdon Sculpteur du Roy 1775, / Bibliothèque Royal

Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, Weimar, Stiftung Weimarer Klassik (inv. Pi 6/1980)

Houdon's bust of the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck was

almost as controversial as the sitter himself. While Gluck was

celebrated as the great reformer of the opera by his followers and

ardently opposed by others, Houdon's bust earned simultaneous praise and criticism for its truthfulness.

Gluck, who was born in Germany and raised in Bohemia,

settled in Vienna and began his official career at the imperial

court in the mid-i75os. In his so-called reform operas, which

can be understood as the musical equivalent to Enlightenment

ideas, Gluck exercised the principles of simplicity, naturalness,

and integration. He reached the peak of his career in 1774-1779

with several productions in Paris, for which he had secured the

patronage of the dauphine, Marie Antoinette, his former pupil

in Vienna and daughter of Austrian archduchess Maria Theresa.

Already a sexagenarian, Gluck took five trips to Paris in these

years for rehearsals and performances of the operas he wrote

and arranged exclusively for French audiences. The eagerly

awaited premiere oflphigénie en Aulide on 19 April 1774, starring

Sophie Arnould in the title role, met tremendous success, immediately surpassed by that of Orphée et Eurydice on 2 August.

Gluck attracted unusual attention, partly because of the

opposition of two groups: supporters of the old French music

of Rameau and Lully, and supporters of the new Italian music.

The latter set up the Neapolitan composer Niccolo Piccinni as

a rival to Gluck, launching a veritable war between Gluckists

and Piccinnists, which caused both men great stress and unhappiness. In 1779, disappointed with the failure of his last work

and in fragile health, Gluck withdrew to Vienna, where he died

eight years later.

The Salon of 1775 featured two portraits of the renowned

composer: a half-length oil painting by Joseph Siifred Duplessis

showing Gluck seated at the harpsichord, and the plaster bust

by Houdon. Prior to this exhibition Gluck had stayed in Paris

twice—once for almost a year, between mid-November 1773

 and

mid-October 1774, and again from late November 1774 through

mid-March 1775. The sittings for Duplessis' portrait occurred

during the earlier sojourn, probably soon after the triumph of

4

Iphigénie en Aulide. Houdon may also have begun working on

his bust around that time. Gluck and his family then resided

in the townhouse of Duke Christian IV of Pfalz-Zweibrücken,

next door to Houdon's former classmate from the Académie

de France, the German court painter Johann Christian von

Mannlich. As a friend and admirer, Mannlich accompanied

Gluck to rehearsals and social events, and he may have intro105
Alternate views of cat. 10

duced the composer and Houdon. He gives a vivid anecdotal

account of Gluck's appearance and behavior in the summer of

1774: "His head was round, his face broad, ruddy, and pockmarked; his eyes were small and rather deep-set, but sparkling,

fiery, and expressive. His nature was blunt, animated, and quicktempered. He was incapable of conforming to the rules and

conventions of polite behavior in the fashionable world.7"

In Houdon's bust of Gluck the composer's unconventional

appearance, pock-marked face, and demanding personality are

sensitively captured. Following the conventional format for

artists, Gluck is shown with open shirt, unbuttoned vest, and

short disheveled hair (which he would cover with a wig when

in public); the upward tilt of his head gives him an inspired

look. Houdon balances the rendering of his sitter's flawed skin

by emphasizing the ribbed texture of the coat, creating an overall surface pattern that unites head and torso. This meticulous

attention to detail was disliked by contemporary reviewers of

the Salon of 1775 and by later critics, who perceived it as exago

gerated and offensive. At the same time, the bust was praised

for its liveliness and vigor and hailed as a companion piece to

Houdon's bust of the actress-singer Sophie Arnould (see cats.

9

8 - 9). Houdon's only documented marble version of this

portrait of Gluck was commissioned in July 1776, when the

composer's Parisian supporters decided to honor him with a

bust in the grand foyer of the Opera, "alongside the portrait of

Rameau." It was installed in March 1778, having been exhibited in the Salon of 1777, but was destroyed by fire in 1873 (see

Related Works).

Among the myriad copies in other materials or sizes, the

bronze-colored plaster bust of Gluck in Weimar is distinguished

by its impeccable provenance and the unusual inscription on its

counterbase. The seventeen-year-old hereditary prince of SaxeWeimar, Carl August, saw the work when visiting Houdon's

studio in Paris on 15 March 1775 and entrusted the art expert in

his entourage, Baron Karl Ludwig von Knebel, with its acquisition. On 8 September 1775 Houdon wrote a letter to Knebel's

friend J.-B. Gaspard d'Ansse de Villoison, saying that the bust

had been sent to Weimar via Strasbourg and that Knebel had

agreed on a price of 4 louis d'or, with shipping and handling to

be paid upon the crate's arrival at its destination. Houdon

enclosed with his letter a report on "the works of sculpture

shown in the Salon and especially mine," that Villoison had

requested for Carl August.

Houdon's inscription on the counterbase of this portrait of

Gluck is remarkable for its length and content, identifying him

as "Sculpteur du Roy" and the location of his workshop as the

"Bibliotheque Royal." The date 1775 establishes a new terminus

ante quern for Houdon's installation at this prestigious address,12

a royal privilege granted only to recognized artists. The comprehensiveness of the inscription must be seen as evidence of

the sculptor's pride in this honor and not, as Mansfeld assumed,

an indication that this bust is identical with the one exhibited

in the Salon of 1775, particularly as it was delivered to its purchaser before the exhibition closed.13

By the time the bust of Gluck arrived in Weimar, Carl

August had ascended to the throne. Under his reign the small

court at Weimar grew into a major center of cultural and intellectual activity, attracting numerous writers, scholars, and scientists. In 1784-1785 Carl August acquired a plaster version

of Houdon's portrait of Henry of Prussia (cat. 54), again

directly from the sculptor's studio and immediately after its

completion. Both busts were installed in the ducal library,

along with many paintings, sculptures, medals, and other

objects (fig. i). Its three-story "Rococo Hall" became a virtual pantheon of famous men —court members, scholars,

poets, and artists — represented in various media. The duke

himself sustained a long-lasting relationship with Gluck16,

whose bust was admired in the library by English writer

George Eliot in 1854: "The rugged power of the face is given

with wonderful reality, as far as possible from the feeble idealization one generally sees in busts."17

ULRIK E D. MATHIES

106
FIGURE S I N TH E ART S

i. Interior of the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, Weimar, ca. 1900, with

Houdoris bust of Gluck at the bottom of the staircase.

2. Gabriel de SaintAubin, drawing of

Houdon's bust

of Gluck in margin

of Salon catalogue of

1777, no. 245 (detail),

BNEst.

PROVENANC E

Purchased from Houdon in Mar. 1775; shipped to Weimar via Strasbourg

in Sept. 1775; installed in the ducal library after 1781 (Oswald 1995,1:11,15);

listed in the inventory of the ducal art collection in Weimar "Repertorium

Gro£herzogliches Kunstkabinett 1818-1851" (HAAB, fol. 23) as "Ritter Gluck,

von Houdon," and in the 1848-1853 inventory of the ducal library, "Verzeichnis der im Kunst-Cabinet auf Grofessherzogl. Bibliothek befindlichen

Gegenstande" (HAAB, fol. 488, XXUlb, no. 79) as "Ritter Gluck, von Houdon

1775, bronziert. 3'h."; Rococo Hall of the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek.

EXHIBITION S

Berlin 1955, 71, ill. pp. 40-41.

REFERENCE S

Charles Joret, "J.-B. Gaspard d'Ansse de Villoison et la cour de Weimar,"

Revue d'histoire litteraire de la France (1895), 529~53°' Joret 1896, 61-64;

Jean Leroux, "L'Iconographie du chevalier Gluck," La Revue musicale. Bulletin

Jrancais de la Societe internationak de musique 10, no. 6 (1914), 44-45; JacquesGabriel Prod'homme, "Les Portraits frangais de Gluck/' Rivista musicak italiana 25 (1918), 44-45 ("reproduction en bronze"); Giacometti 1918-1919,

2:185-187; Jacques-Gabriel Prod'homme, "A Propos du Centenaire de la

mort de Houdon. Gluck et Houdon, histoire d'un buste," Mercure de France

(July-August 1928), 68-69; Werner Deetjen, "Houdon's Gluck-Biiste in der

Weimarer Bibliothek," Deutscher Schillerbund Mitteilungen 62 (May 1932),

2, ill. title page; Bogyay 1935, 365-366; Mansfeld 1955, 125-130, no. 20;

Reau 1964,1:83,1:376; 2:31-32, no. 125; Arnason 1975,108 n. 67, fig. 78,

pi. i43c; Bernd Vogelsang, "Zur Rezeption der Bildnisse des Komponisten

Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck (1714-1787)," Johann Anton de Peters.

Ein Kolner Maler des 18. Jahrhunderts in Paris [exh. cat., Wallraf-RichartzMuseum] (Cologne, 1981), no, no. Ig; Gabriele Oswald, "Die Plastiksammlung der Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek in Weimar" (Ph.D. diss.,

Martin-Luther-Universitat, Halle-Wittenberg, 1995), 2:145, no. 39; Schuttwolf

1995,145.

RELATE D WORK S

Versions with full shoulders and partial torso

Marble

Following Houdon's plaster bust of Gluck shown in the Salon of 1775 (no.

258), the marble was exhibited in 1777 (no. 245) and destroyed in the fire at

the Paris Opera, 28-29 Oct. 1873. A faithful reproduction, ordered in 1798

by Alexandre Lenoir for the Musee des monuments frangais and executed

in marble by Guillaume Francin, is in the Musee national du chateau de

Versailles (inv. MV 6041; MR 2179). The Louvre's plaster cast workshop distributed copies of this reproduction beginning in 1864 (Rionnet 1996, 264,

no. mo). The Francin copy and the drawing by Saint-Aubin in his copy of

the Salon catalogue of 1777 (fig. 2) show that Houdon's marble, although

with full shoulders, was slightly more truncated than the plaster in Weimar.

Extant plasters (most important works only)

Staatliches Museum, Schwerin (inv. Pi 280); H. 72.8 cm (with base: 88.2

cm), painted terracotta color; cachet de I'atelier on lower center of back support. See Steinmann 1911, 213-214; Schwerin 2000,174, no. 4, ill. p. 175.

Schlossmuseum Gotha (inv. P 46); H. 72.8 cm (with base: 88.6 cm),

painted matte white. See Schuttwolf 1995,145, no. 55, ill. p. 178.

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preu£ischer Kulturbesitz, Skulpturensammlung (formerly Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum) (inv. 1960); H. (with base)

107
88 cm; painted dark orange; until 1892 in the Konigliche Bibliothek, Musikabteilung; according to Dierks 1887,61, sent to the court in Berlin by Houdon

himself. See Theodor Demmler, Die Bildwerke des Deutschen Museums, vol.

3, Die Bildwerke in Holz, Stein und Ton. Grofiplastik (Berlin, 1930), 465-466,

no. 1960, ill.; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung. Bildwerke

aus sieben Jahrhunderten II (Berlin, 1972), 106, no. 107, fig 116.

Variants with truncated shoulders (selection)

Terracottas

Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin (inv. Pi 96/12); H. 49.6 cm; see

Koschnick 1997, 276, ill.

Royal Academy of Music, London; H. (with base) 67 cm; donated in

1894 by Sir George Donaldson; see London 1932,141-142, no. 286.

Cleveland Museum of Art (inv. 88.59); H. 51 cm, W. 40 cm; bought

from a dealer in 1988; see Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, 1991), 114, ill.

Plaster

Sale, Rohan-Chabot, 8 Dec. 1807.

Posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio, 15-17 Dec. 1828,16,

no. 22, sold with plaster bust of Jean-Guillaume Moitte for u francs (Reau

1964,1:119); probably the bust seen in Boilly's paintings of Houdon's studio (cat. 66), a terracotta-colored copy of the type with truncated shoulders

in the middle of the lower shelf on the back wall.

Reduced bronze

Musee des arts decoratifs, Paris (inv. 15199); H. 30 cm; cast by Thomire, and

inscribed "FC THOMIRE 1778"; attached gilt bronze base (Niclausse 1947,

39,119, ill. p. 112); another version is said to have been in the Edmond Courty

collection, Chatillon-sous-Bagneux (Reau 1964, 2:32).

Signature on cat. 10

1. See Patricia Howard, Gluck: An Eighteenth-Century

Portrait in Letters and Documents (Oxford, 1995); and

Patricia Howard, Gluck: A Guide to Research (New

York), 1987.

2. Critical accounts of all known portraits are given in

Emil Vogel, "Gluck-Portraits," Jahrbuch der Musikbibliothek Peters fur 1897 (Leipzig, 1898), 13-18; Leroux 1914,

39-47; and Prod'homme 1918, 29-62. The Duplessis

painting is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum,

Gemaldegalerie, Vienna (inv. 1795).

3. Georg Kinsley, "Clucks Reisen nach Paris," Zeitschrift

fur Musikwissenschaft 8 (1925-1926), 551-566.

4. The portrait was well advanced if not finished in

early Oct. 1774, when Mile de Lespinasse, who had

personally seen it in Duplessis' studio, mentioned it in

a letter (see Prod'homme 1918, 30-31). Owing to the

death of the king, performances of Iphigenie en Aulide

were suspended 10 May 1774 for the period of mourning. Gluck spent time socializing before he started

rehearsals for Orphee et Eurydice, which was performed

forty-seven times between 2 Aug. and 20 Nov. 1774.

5. Kinsky 1925-1926, 553.

6. There is no indication that Gluck and Houdon met

through their association with different Masonic

lodges, as assumed in Prod'homme 1918, 43 n. 2;

Houdon did not become a member of the Loge des

Neuf Soeurs until 1778.

7. Mannlich (ed. 1989-1993), 2:106-137. Translation

in Howard 1995, no.

8. [Jean-Francois-Gilles Colson], Observations sur les

ouvrages exposes au Sallon du Louvre...(Paris, 1775),

55-56 (Deloynes X, no. 160); L'Art de voyager au loin

sans sortir d'une chambre. Lettre...sur les tableaux

exposes au Sallon de I'Academie royalle de peinture et

sculpture (1775) (BNEst, YD2 19 in 8°); Bachaumont

1780, 214-215. See also Quatremere de Quincy

1834,1:398.

9. Salon cat. 1775, no. 257.

10. A subscription was set up to cover Houdon's remuneration of 4,000 livres. For the terms of the subscription, the identity of the underwriters and subscribers,

and a reproduction of the original documents see

Prod'homme 1918,47-55.

n. Discovered in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, and

published in Joret 1896, 61-64.

12. Reau 1964,1:170, and Vitry i9O7d, 219, give the

year as 1777.

13. See Mansfeld 1955,129. In 1775 the Salon was

extended through 30 Sept. (see Seznec and Adhemar

1957-1967,4:233).

14. The bills and receipts for this purchase were

discovered in the archives in Weimar (see Mansfeld

1955,132).

15. See Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek. Kulturgeschichte einer Sammlung, ed. Michael Knoche

(Munich and Vienna, 1999).

16. See Gluck's letters to Carl August in Hedwig

Mueller von Asow and E. H. Mueller von Asow, eds.,

The Collected Correspondence and Papers ofChristoph

Willibald Gluck (London, 1962), 173,191.

17. Entry of n Aug. 1854, The Journals of George Eliot,

ed. Margaret Harris and Judith Johnston (Cambridge,

1998), 22; see also 27.

108
II

* Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, called Molière (1622-1673)

Dated 1781

Terracotta, with plaster restorations, on circular gray marble base

H. 50 cm (with base: 62 cm), W. 49 cm, D. 33 cm

Inscribed on truncation of right shoulder: houdon ij&i

Cachet de l'atelier on back

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans (inv. 1691)

On 15 February 1773 the actor Lekain proposed that the Comédie

Française use profits from a performance marking the centennial of Molière's death to erect a statue of him. It was probably

not by chance that this suggestion came about three years after

a fund was established for a marble statue of Voltaire by JeanBaptiste Pigalle. The Académie française approved the project,

but general indifference obliged the actors to give it up. On

30 September 1776 they ordered "that a bust of Molière... in

marble be executed by M. Houdon" in exchange for a lifetime

pass to the theater. The model was completed 10 March 1778,4

and the marble recorded on Houdon's autograph list of 1784

under the year 1778. Probably installed in the public foyer of

the Comédie-Française in early 1779, it still occupies that pride

of place, but in a new theater at the Palais Royal (fig. i).

Houdon's bust of Molière quickly became famous. The

terracotta model was exhibited at the Salon of 1779 (no. 218) as

belonging to Miromesnil. In May 1778 d'Alembert gave a plaster of it to the Académie française; Houdon sent one to the

Société des beaux-arts in Montpellier the next year; plasters

were acquired by many of Houdon's patrons, including the

dukes of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Saxe-Gotha, Prince Henry

of Prussia, and the king of Poland (see Related Works).

The present sculpture was in the collection of FrançoisPascal Haudry, who owned four busts by Houdon. The Molière

was displayed as a pendant to La Fontaine (cat. 12). Both are terracottas, but they were once repaired in plaster (especially in

the back), probably after an accident, and given a thick coating

o

of terracotta-colored paint. The Orléans version of Molière is

smaller than the marble at the Comédie-Française and the plasters in Montpellier, Schwerin, and Gotha: the head is identical,

but the truncation, elegantly rounded, is narrower, like that of

La Fontaine.

For this retrospective portrait, Houdon was inspired by an

iconography dominated by paintings by the Mignard brothers.

He apparently executed his model after "a rather mediocre copy

that belonged to the Comédie-Française." He then had access,

at the home of a collector, to an "original" by Mignard:

That precious discovery gave him new ideas and allowed

him to render his subject even more true to life, to make

an ideal far superior to all the portraits we know of

Molière, both in the beauty of its expression and probably as well in the truth of its forms. That great man's

genius for observation is expressed with an energy,

109

FIGURE S I N TH E ART S

i. Houdon, Moliere, ijjS,

marble, Comedie-Frangaise, Paris.

a nobility, that no painter has ever approached. The

forehead bears the mark of profound meditation. His

gaze (M. Houdon may be the first sculptor able to do

eyes) penetrates deep into the heart.... It was after M.

Voltaire saw that masterpiece and kissed it on his knees

that he kindly permitted the young artist to do his bust

from life, even though he was already quite ill at the time.

It is not known exactly which painting was the "original" seen

by Houdon. Many portraits of Moliere had circulated since the

late seventeenth century. A print by Jean-Baptiste Nolin reproduces a painting by Pierre Mignard, which shows the writer

seated, holding a book and pen, wearing an ample wig, his shirt

fastened at his throat, looking directly at the viewer. By contrast,

Moliere looks to his right in an engraving by Audran after a

painting by Nicolas Mignard, Pierre's brother (fig. 2); a famous

version of this image represents the actor in the role of Caesar

in Corneille's La Mort de Pompee. It is probably this work that

inspired Houdon: the slightly turned head, attentive eyes, fine

mustache, fleshy lips, and open shirt collar.

Houdon's execution of a bust of Moliere for the Comedie

Franchise stirred the enmity of his colleague Jean-Jacques

Caffieri, who considered the theater his private preserve and

had regularly proposed works for it since his marble of Alexis

Piron in 1773. Caffieri was shattered when Houdon sent plasters

of his Voltaire (cat. 24) to actors in the company, replacing his

own Philippe Quinault. He sent an anonymous letter to the

comte d'Angiviller, probably at the end of February 1779, expressing his bitterness: "Moliere was full of fire and imagination. .. .your sculptor represents him as a stupid man, with no

passion in his physiognomy. That head, which is larger than

life, has no movement to animate it. His wig looks like tufts of

wool, his dressing gown and cravat are so meager that it's impossible to know of what fabric they're made. The whole thing is

polished and very proper, which is what delights the ignorant,

of whom there are a great number." The letter received a sympathetic hearing from the leadership at the Batiments du Roi,

which was ambivalent about Houdon and commissioned

Caffieri in 1781 to create the marble statue of Moliere for the

14

"Great Men of France" series.

Among Houdon's submissions to the Salon of 1779, the terracotta Moliere drew favorable attention: "M. Houdon's talent

for the portrait is well known; but he has once again surpassed

himself this year. The busts of Moliere, Voltaire... and Rousseau

are so many masterpieces." When Caffieri showed his own

bust of Moliere at the Salon of 1781, he attracted a scathing critique: "[He] was wrong.. .to try to fight against M. Houdon,

who rendered him with the fine features of a creator of comedic

characters; Caffieri imagined him as the enemy and detractor

of vices and, in wishing to give him a severe character, made

him brutal and disagreeable." Houdon's interpretation was

still preferred in 1787, when Caffieri displayed his marble statue

at the Salon: "Of the illustrious figures for the king, only the

Moliere is worthy of attention. The head, however, is somewhat

insignificant and is pouting a little. That statue has not displaced

M. Houdon's beautiful bust in our minds."17

Subsequent opinions have been divided. Montaiglon and

Duplessis were enthusiastic: "The bust of Moliere [is] one of

the most beautiful, and certainly the most ideal, of any he ever

2. Audran, Moliere, engraving

after Nicolas Mignard, inscribed

"P. Mignard pinx. / B. Audran

Scul," BNEst.

Ill
Signature and back view of cat. n

made." Rostrup was more critical: "The better he got along

with his model, the more felicitous the result. That is why he also

did not master the historical or retrospective portrait. In that

respect, he clearly had to yield to his rival and sworn enemy

Caffieri. The bust of Moliere... thus appears devoid of all substance and rigid, compared with the portraits he executed from

life, or even from a death mask he had done of people he had

19

known well during his lifetime." That judgment may be rather

harsh. Houdon gave life to the two retrospective portraits now

known: Moliere and La Fontaine. He edified himself with the

images at his disposal and translated them admirably into three

dimensions. One contemporary exclaimed: "We recognize the

philosopher's piercing glance, his genius for observation. That

is how the Father of Comedy must have been. Upon seeing

him, everyone says: that's Moliere."

It is difficult today to imagine how Houdon's composition

appeared in its original state. The marble at the ComedieFrancaise has suffered from rough handling in the past, including a treatment about 1843 by Dantan the Elder. The plasters

in Montpellier, Schwerin, Gotha, and Berlin have been repainted

several times, as has the terracotta in Orleans. Nevertheless, the

work's charm remains intact. The rounded truncation of the

Orleans version is particularly harmonious with Moliere's

almond-shaped eyes, the trace of a smile shaded by his fine

mustache, and the softness of his hair. The slight turn of the

head and the portrayal of an artist in an open shirt recall the

vivid and dynamic busts by Antoine Coysevox; but the handsome twist in the knotted cravat, which adds a brilliant touch of

elegance, is Houdon's signature.

GUILHE M SCHERF

PROVENANC E

Collection of Francois- Pascal Haudry (1728-1800); posthumous sale of his

collection, Orleans, 1800, no. 186 (as terracotta); Vandeberghe collection;

acquired ca. 1848 by M. Dupuis, appeal court advisor in Orleans; gift of

Miles Dupuis, 8 Aug. 1887, "en souvenir de leur pere" (entry registry at

Musee des Beaux-Arts, Orleans, no. U24A).

EXHIBITION S

Orleans 1876, no. 1682: lent by "Mme Dupuis, a Orleans."

REFERENCE S

Paris 1928, 56, under no. 50; Reau 1964, 1:351; Arnason 1975, 66; Dijon

and Orleans 1992, 80, no. 7.

RELATE D WORK S

Terracottas

Salon of 1779, no. 218: "tire du cabinet du M. de Miromesnil, Garde-desSceaux"; possibly Thore-Burger's posthumous sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris,

5 Dec. 1892, no. 60 (1,480 francs).

On rectangular base; inscribed "houdon f. 1778"; included in Exposition d'artfran$ais du XVIIIe siecle [exh. cat., Galerie Jamarin] (Paris, 1916), no.

69; and L'Art au theatre [exh. cat., Galerie Charpentier] (Paris, 1925), no. no

(loaned by J. S. Morgan in 1916 and 1925); and French Painting and Sculpture of the Eighteenth Century [exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art]

(New York, 1935-1936), no. 105, ill. (loaned by Caroline L Morgan).

On circular base; inscribed: "Houdon f."; purchased from Giacometti

by Raymond Vaxelaire of Brussels in 1921; described enthusiastically in

Giacometti 1929, 2:120-121.

Marbles

Comedie-Francaise, Paris (inv. S 141) (fig. i); H. 82 cm; inscribed on front

of rectangular marble base: "JEAN-BAPTISTE POQUELIN-MOLIERE, NE

A / PARIS EN 1622, ET MORT LE 17. FEVRIER1673"; inscribed on left side:

"HOUDON FECIT ANNO 1778." Commissioned by Comedie Francaise,

30 Sept. 1776 (see text above).

Sarrazin sale, 8-9 Jan. 1816, no. 102: "Buste de Moliere, proportion

demi-nature, et reduite d'apres le grand modele place dans le foyer de la

Comedie-Francaise. II n'existe dans le commerce aucun buste fait par M.

Houdon dans cette proportion, ce marbre est le seul qui ait ete fait."

On rectangular marble base; H. with base: 83 cm; inscribed: "HOUDON

F. 1782"; due de Talleyrand collection at chateau de Valencay; his sale, Galerie

Georges Petit, Paris, 29 May-i June 1899, no. 42, ill. (49,000 francs); sale,

Galliera, Paris, 16 June 1967, no. 167, ill.

Plasters

Bust given to Academic francaise in 1778 by d'Alembert, along with one of

Voltaire (cat. 24) (Corr. litteraire, May 1778); base inscribed "Rien ne manque

a sa gloire, il manquait a la notre," from Bernard-Joseph Saurin (Memoires

secrets, 12:179, i Dec. 1778). At Musee des monuments francais, Paris, in

1803 (AMMF 1887, 3:81; museum cat., 1797 to 1816, no. 281); Alexandre

Lenoir received another copy from the Nesle warehouse in 1799 and may

have had plaster casts made from previous casts (AMMF 1883,1:319; 1886,

2:404; and 1887, 3:208). A copy was sent to Versailles in 1834; H. 65 cm

(with base: 80 cm) (Versailles cat. 1993, 272, no. 1251, ill.).

Bust given by Houdon to Societe des beaux-arts, Montpellier (now Musee

Fabre) (inv. 806.31); H. 82 cm; inscribed on front of rectangular base: "JEAN112
FIGURE S I N TH E ART S

BAPTISTE POQUELIN-MOLIERE, NE A / PARIS EN 1620, ET MORT LE

17. FEVRIER 1673"; inscribed on left side: FAIT PAR HOUDON EN 1778";

recorded in minutes of society meeting, 7 Mar. 1779; exhibited that year as no.

178 (Stein 1913,379,402). The bust today is white (described with green finish

in Joubin 1926, no. 939; and Claparède [éd. 1993], 43, ill.; see also Bajou 1989,

26, fig. 3). Gonse 1904, 268 (ill. p. 267), considered it an original plaster.

Staatliche Museum, Schwerin (inv. PP 287); painted terracotta color; on

circular base; H. 63 cm (with base: 83.5 cm); cachet de l'atelier on back; acquired

by duke of Meddenburg-Schwerin in 1782; see Schwerin 2000, no. 4, ill.

Schlossmuseum Gotha (inv. P 28); with bronze finish; on rectangular

base; H. 83.2 cm; acquired by Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha; see Schuttwolf

1995, no. 57, ill.

Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Berlin; with bronze finish; H. 81 cm; acquired

by Prince Henry of Prussia; see Rheinsberg 1985, no. 99; and Rheinsberg

2002,443, and no. ¥1.43.

Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw; H. 61 cm; acquired by King Stanislaw

Augustus II Poniatowski; see Dariusz Kaczmarzyk, Rzezba europejska od XV

doXXwieku. Katalog zbiorow, Muzeum Narodowe (Warsaw, 1978), no. 106.

At Houdon's studio in 1815, King Frederick William III of Prussia "a paru

surtout satisfait d'un buste de Molière" (Le Moniteur, 18 Sept. 1815,1032).

Bust (possibly plaster) mentioned in announcement of Houdon's studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795, but not included in list of works for sale. Perhaps the

same bust depicted by Boilly in his paintings of Houdon's studio (see cat. 66),

at left near the bust of Cagliostro.

[Duchesse de Bourbon] sale, Palais de l'Elysée, Paris, 13 Aug. 1798, no. 83:

plaster "finished by Houdon," sold along with plasters of Voltaire and Rousseau.

Formerly château de Corgolin, Côte d'Or (supposedly from Monge family); on circular base; acquired by dealer Joseph Duveen (Paris 1928, no. 50;

Giacometti 1929,1:176, ill., 2:120); Lucien Tessier collection sale, Galerie

Charpentier, Paris, io-ii June 1958, no. 172, pi. 55. Giacometti considered

it an original plaster.

Princeton University, Firestone Library; painted terracotta color; inscribed "houdon f 1778." See Worcester 1964,43-47, ill.; Arnason 1975, fig.

106, pis. 45 and 47.

Louvre's plaster cast workshop made copies beginning in 1883 (examples at Carlsberg Museum, Copenhagen, and Musée Lambinet, Versailles);

also distributed through the Musée de sculpture comparée at Le Trocadéro

(see Rionnet 1996, 267, no. 1128), where a copy was exhibited (Enlart and

Roussel 1910, 222, G 152). Plasters are also at the museum in Rouen and at

the abbey of Châalis, among other locations.

Bronzes

Houdon said in his mémoire to Bachelier (1794), that he had made bronzes

of Molière and other illustrious men "since the Revolution."

Anonymous sale, Paris, 29 Aug. 1797, no. in: "Bronze... Le buste de

Molière exécuté avec tout le soin possible. Haut. 26 pouces [70.8 cm]."

Musée Ingres, Montauban (inv. Ml 842.9.3); H. 57 cm, W. 54 cm, D.

36 cm; inscribed along truncation of right shoulder: "HOUDON F 1786";

purchased in Montauban during court-ordered liquidation of the inheritance of the receiver-general Scitivaux, Dec. 1844. See Paris 1878, no. 276.

The Barbedienne foundry produced a full-size version (H. 83 cm with

base) as well as reductions: six sizes (heights of n, 14, 20, 28, 40, and 52

cm) were offered in the catalogues of 1880,1884, and 1894.

Print

Oval print showing Molière in profile, inscribed: "dessiné et gravé par

Augfustin] S* Aubin d'après le buste fait par Houdon," BNEst, N2, microfilm

D 215418.

1. Gaborit 1985,70-74.

2. M.-J. Taschereau, Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de

Molière (Paris, 1844), 269-270.

3. "Registre des délibérations de la Comédie Française

24 juillet 1769-1er février 1784," fol. 57,30 Sept. 1776

(Bibliothèque de la Comédie-Française). See also

Dacier 1905.

4. Date of Journal de Paris, no. 69, inviting the public

to see the work in Houdon's studio. See also Mémoires

secrets, 11:197-198,19 Apr. 1778.

5. Vitry i9O7b, 201, no. 55. See also Réau 1964, 2:38,

no. 164, pi. 79; and Arnason 1975, pi. 46 (detail).

6. Mentioned in that place in Salon catalogue of 1779.

The Comédie Française had been located in the

château des Tuileries since 1770 and was about to

move into a new theater (now the Odéon), inaugurated

in 1782.

7. See Houdon's letter to society, 26 Feb. 1779, in Claparède (éd. 1993), 41, presenting his work.stipulating

that the society have no molds made, and giving the

price for the already well-known bust: 4 louis "whether

plaster alone or with a bronze finish."

8. Giacometti and the museum curator, Deschellerin,

thought the busts were plaster (letters of 12 May

and 2i Aug. 1919, Orléans museum files). This

was repeated (with doubts) in Marguerite Devigne,

"Quelques œuvres de sculpture française du XVII le

siècle à Bruxelles," excerpted from Le Flambeau

(Bruxelles, 1925), 7 n. 2; and (straightforwardly)

in Paris 1928, 56.

9. Corr. littéraire, May 1778,12:103-105.

10. Inscribed "Petrus Mignard Trecensis Pinxit / Jo.

Baptis. Nolin Sculpsit 1685" (BNEst, N2, microfilm

D 215323). A beautiful version of the painting, ça.

1660, is at the Musée Condé, Chantilly.

11. Musée de la Comédie-Française, Paris, ça. 1734,

"probably after a lost portrait by Nicolas Mignard,"

replicated by Charles Coypel (see Lefrançois 1994,

281-284, no. 165).

12. Guiffrey 1877, 283.

13. Guiffrey 1877, 287, with facsimile of the letter.

14. Louvre cat. 1998,127, ill. See also the essay

"Houdon, 'Above All Modern Artists'" in the present

catalogue.

15. See Jean-Baptiste Radet, Ah! Ah! Encore une critique

du Ballon! Voyons ce qu'elle chante (Deloynes XI, no.

208); also L'Année littéraire 7 (1779); and Renou in Journal de Paris (MacWilliam 1991, 286, 287, and 284).

16. Mémoires secrets. Lettre sur le Salon de ijSi

(Fort 1999, 246). Caffieri's bust has disappeared;

the terracotta at the Musée de la Fondation Calouste

Gulbenkian dates from 1785.

17. Merlin au Salon de 1787 (Deloynes XV, no. 385;

MacWilliam 1991,438).

18. Montaiglon and Duplessis 1855,178.

19. Rostrup 1973, 5.

20. His portraits of Charles IX and Jean-Baptiste

Colbert have disappeared (Réau 1964, 2:29, nos. 102

and 108)

21. Laus de Boissy in Journal de Paris, 415, no. 104,

14 Apr. 1778.

22. Handwritten report, unsigned and undated, and

note of 31 Mar. 1844 indicating treatment paid for

18 June 1844 (Bibliothèque de la Comédie-Française,

Dantan files).

II3

12

+ Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695)

lySl

Terracotta, with plaster restorations, on circular gray marble base

H. 54 cm (with base: 66 cm), W. 49 cm, D. 32 cm

Cachet de l'atelier on back

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans (inv. 1690)

A terracotta bust of La Fontaine mentioned in Houdon's autograph list of 1784 under the year 1782, possibly the one now at

Vaux-le-Vicomte, could hardly be the same one cited in the catalogue of the Salon of 1783, where the marble was displayed

(see Related Works): "the model was done in 1781 for M. le Président Aubry." It is tempting to believe that Aubry was none other

than François-Pascal Haudry—to whose collection the Orléans

bust can be traced—for such misprints in the Salon catalogue

were not uncommon. The Orléans terracotta was once repaired

in plaster (especially in the back), probably after an accident,

and was given a generous coating of terracotta-colored paint.

The curator at Orléans in 1919 expressed doubts about the material,3 and Réau, preparing his catalogue (published after his

death), vacillated. Yet the cut of this bust is much narrower

than the marble, the superb Vaux-le-Vicomte terracotta, or the

Schwerin plaster. This portrait is smaller, though the head is

the same. Thus the Orléans sculpture could have been executed

in 1781, like its pendant, Molière, which is in the same material

and has the same provenance (see cat. n).

With his posthumous likeness of La Fontaine, Houdon followed an iconography established by Hyacinthe Rigaud, whose

portrait of the writer circulated widely in studio replicas and

engravings. The painting, probably done when La Fontaine

was accepted into the Académie française in 1684, exists notably

in a rectangular format (at the museum of the abbey of Montserrat, bequeathed by La Fontaine's descendants) and in an oval

format (Musée Carnavalet, Paris). The latter is conveyed especially well in an engraving by Edelinck (fig. i). Houdon was

directly inspired by Rigaud, replicating the large wig cascading

onto the shoulders, the lace frill at the neck, and the wide coat

lapel running diagonally across the torso. The face is the same,

with the aquiline nose and the mouth held in an almost bitter

grin. Rigaud's portrait had earlier been used as a model by JeanJacques Caffieri, who explicitly acknowledged the source. His

terracotta bust of La Fontaine (fig. 2) appeared at the Salon of

1779 before being given to the Comédie-Française that year. La

Fontaine here turns in the same direction as in the engraving after Rigaud (whereas Houdon remained faithful to the

composition of the painting itself). Caffieri's modeling is a bit

stiff and generalized in his desire for synthesis, but the work is

o

moving in its expression of the sitter's anxiety. In comparison, Houdon's sculpture is much more austere and more sumptuous. Houdon wanted to capture the grandeur of Rigaud's

image, which depicts the writer in a formal pose.

"5
The statue of La Fontaine by Pierre Julien, which was part 

of the "Great Men of France" series commissioned by the comte 

d'Angiviller, moved away from the overpowering model of the 

Rigaud to show the fabulist in a relaxed pose, legs crossed, with 

an absent-minded gaze. The plaster model, displayed at the 

9 

Salon of 1783, was widely discussed, whereas Houdon's terracotta bust was ignored; the bust was shown upstairs in the exhibition proper, whereas the statue, displayed in the court with 

the other "Great Men," was immediately noticed by visitors as 

they arrived at the Palais du Louvre. Because the two portraits 

of La Fontaine were separated by some distance, a comparison 

between them could not be readily made, and no critic ventured 

to make it. 

The collector Francois-Pascal Haudry may have been 

descended from Andre Haudry, a farmer general who acquired 

the seigneury of Soucy in 1746. 1 0 In 1770 Andre's position 

passed to his son, a discerning patron and music lover as well 

as a spendthrift and libertine who went bankrupt in 1781, then 

became a director of the Manufacture de Sevres around 1792. 1 1 

Francois-Pascal, presumably of this dynasty, was president of 

the Orleans bureau des finances and an administrator of the 

city's school of design (founded in 1786). He was a friend of 

the Orleans art enthusiast Aignan-Thomas Desfriches,12 knew 

the art market well, and made frequent trips to Paris. 1 3 The bust 

of Haudry done by Jacques Simiand (active in Paris 1779-1785) 

14 

shows him with the pleasantly untidy appearance of an artist. 

Haudry acquired a fairly large collection of paintings and a few 

sculptures, which were dispersed in Orleans after his death.15 

His four terracotta busts by Houdon are now at the Musee des 

Beaux-Arts: Voltaire and Rousseau (both "a la francaise"), La 

Fontaine and Moliere. Such a private collection of sculpted representations of illustrious men was rare in France at the time. 1 6 

Yet it was similar to the portrait galleries assembled by some of 

the sculptor's clients among the German and Russian nobility. 

In Houdon's memoire to Bachelier in 1794 he listed his bust 

of La Fontaine immediately after that of Moliere. The two portraits were clearly conceived as pendants. They were shown 

together in the homes of Haudry, the duke of MecklenburgSchwerin, Talleyrand, and the Monge family in Corgolin (see 

Related Works). The La Fontaine also has a smaller format, with 

a rounded truncation matching that of the Moliere. In fact, the 

former is less majestic than the imposing Vaux-le-Vicomte 

terracotta or the Schwerin plaster. 

GUILHE M SCHER F 

I l 6 

PROVENANCE 

Collection of Francois-Pascal Haudry (1728-1800); posthumous sale of his 

collection, Orleans, 1800, no. 186 (as terracotta); Vandeberghe collection; 

acquired ca. 1848 by M . Dupuis, appeal court advisor in Orleans; gift of 

Miles Dupuis, 8 Aug. 1887, "en souvenir de leur pere" (entry registry at 

Musee des Beaux-Arts, Orleans, no. 1125A). 

EXHIBITIONS 

Orleans 1876, no. 1683: lent by "Mme Dupuis, a Orleans." 

REFERENCES 

Delerot et Legrelle 1857,117-118,181; Vitry 1907b, 207, no. 102; Paris 1928, 

49, under no. 43; Giacometti 1929, 2:106; Reau 1964,1:351, 2:35, no. 143A, 

pi. LXXII; H . Harvard Arnason, "Jean-Antoine Houdon's Jean de La 

Fontaine," Art News 66, no. 10 (Feb. 1968), 70; Arnason 1975, 66 and 114 

n. 168, pi. 77 (detail); Dijon and Orleans 1992, 80-81, no. 8, ill. 

RELATED WORKS 

Terracottas 

Houdon's studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795, no. 96: "Terre cuite.... Le buste de La 

Fontaine; il est pose sur piedouche en marbre blanc. Haut. totale 29 pouces 

[78.3 cm]." 

A very fine example; inscribed on truncation of right shoulder: "houdon 

f. / 1782"; Laperlier sale, 17 Feb. 1879, no. 126; acquired by M. Sommier for 

his chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte and kept there still (Reau 1964, 2:35, no. 

143B, pi. LXXVII). 

Terracotta with the dealer Rene Gimpel (mentioned in Versailles 1928, 

no. 24). 

Plaster 

Staatliches Museum, Schwerin (inv. PI 282); painted terracotta color; H. 70.5 

(with base: 86.5 cm), W. 64.5 cm, D. 34.2 cm; cachet de I'atelier on back; 

acquired by duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin during visit to Houdon's studio in 1782; see Schwerin 2000, no. 10, ill. 

Though not in catalogue of the posthumous sale of the contents of 

Houdon's studio, 15-17 Dec. 1828, a plaster is mentioned in Gandouin 

1893-1907, 29 (sold for 7 francs). 

1. Edelinck, Jean de La Fontaine, 

after 1684, engraving after Hyacinthe 

Rigaud, BNEst. 

2. Jean-Jacques Caffieri, Jean de La 

Fontaine, tyjg, terracotta, ComedieFrancaise, Paris. 
FIGURE S I N TH E ART S

Formerly château de Corgolin, Côte d'Or (supposedly from Monge family); plaster on circular base; H. 80 cm; inscribed: "Houdon" on back;

acquired by dealer Joseph Duveen (see Paris 1928, no. 43; Giacometti 1929,

1:184, ill., 2:107); Lucien Teissier collection sale, Galerie Charpentier, Paris,

lo-ii June 1958, no. 171, ill.; sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 25 Mar. 1981, ill.

Giacometti considered it an original plaster.

Formerly Sacha Guitry collection; see Réau 1964, 2:35, under no. 143.

"H / HOUDON, F."; château de Valençay; duc de Talleyrand sale, 29 Mayi June 1899, no. 43, ill.; acquired for 30,000 francs by Gaston Menier (Versailles 1928, no. 24; Paris 1928, no. 42); his posthumous sale, 24 Nov. 1936,

no. 71, pi. 12; repurchased by his heirs; sale, Galliéra, Paris, 18 June 1963, no.

156, ill.; acquired by museum in 1966 (Arnason 1968, 30-33, 69-70, ill.;

Arnason 1975, fig. 139). In all likelihood, this is the marble exhibited at the

Salon of 1783 as no. 247.

Marble

Philadelphia Museum of Art (inv. 1966-174-1); marble bust on rectangular

marble base, H. 87 cm (with base); inscribed twice, once on truncation

of proper left shoulder: "HOUDON, F.," and again (indecisively) on base:

Boilly paintings

A plaster bust of La Fontaine is seen in the two canvases Boilly painted of

Houdon's studio (cat. 66), at the end of the right-hand shelf next to a bust

of Jerome Lalande.

Back view of cat. 12

1. See Vitry igoyb, 207, no. 102.

2. Favre-Lejeune 1986,1:151, cites a dynasty of magistrates named Aubry, but prior to the 17803. Joël Félix,

Les Magistrats du Parlement de Paris 1771-2790. Dictionnaire biographique et généalogique (Paris, 1990), lists no

magistrates under that name.

3. Letter of 21 Aug. 1919 from M. Deschellerin to Giacometti (Orléans museum files): "Les deux derniers

bustes [Molière and La Fontaine] ne sont pas en terre

cuite, mais doivent être en stuck, et n'ont pas du être

retouchés par le maître comme les deux terres cuites

de Voltaire et de Rousseau." Giacometti 1929, 2:106,

however, describes the medium as terracotta.

4. Letter from the publisher De Nobele to the Orléans

museum curator, 4 Apr. 1964, notes that Réau indicates on one page that the bust is made of plaster and

on another that it is of terracotta. The same inconsistency is found in Arnason 1975: see 114 n. 168 and

caption to pi. 77.

5. Dominique Brème, "Mon portrait jusqu'ici ne

m'a rien reproché," m Jean de La Fontaine [exh. cat.,

Bibliothèque Nationale] (Paris, 1995-1996),

108-121, passim.

6. In 1784 Caffieri sent seventeen busts to the

Académie française, and his letter of submission

mentions "Jean de la Fontaine... done after

Hyacinthe Rigaud" (see Guiffrey 1877, 360).

7. Guiffrey 1877, 340-341. The bust is now installed at

the theater's main staircase.

8. Louis-Pierre Deseine was inspired by Caffieri's work

when he did his own terracotta bust of La Fontaine in

1799 for the Musée des monuments français (on longterm loan from the château de Versailles to the Musée

Jean de La Fontaine in Château-Thierry); see Versailles

cat. 1993, 2ii, no. 945, ill.

9. "The good nature, simplicity, and sensitivity are

ingeniously expressed The attitude and facial

features project equally the candor and the charming

openness that characterize the French fabulist"

(L'Année littéraire 6, letter 16). "This is La Fontaine,

it breathes. His air of freedom and simplicity is

in all his features" (Messieurs, Ami de tout le monde;

Deloynes XIII, no. 295; MacWilliam 1991, 362).

Julien's marble was exhibited at the Salon of 1785;

see Louvre cat. 1998, 447, ill.

10. The family's legendary origin went back to

Estienne Haudry, an officer under Saint Louis and

founder of the convent of Haudriettes.

11. Contemporary accounts describe Haudry's sumptuous life-style; see Mme Roland (ed. 1986), 274-276.

12. Cuénin 1997, 224, 295 n. 54. Desfriches was a

friend of Jean-Baptiste Pigalle —he had four of the

sculptor's terracottas in his collection —and he owned

a beautiful plaster of Houdon's Miromesnil (now at

the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans).

13. Paul Ratouis de Limay, Un amateur Orléanais au

XVIIIe siècle. Aignan-Thomas Desfriches (1715-1800)...

(Paris, 1907), 24-28, cites two 1780 letters from

Haudry to Desfriches. Haudry was a regular at the

auction houses, had conversations with Paillet, and

knew about the "underhanded schemes" of "cunning"

dealers such as Lenglier.

14. See Dijon and Orléans 1992, 83, no. 29, ill.

Another plaster version, signed and dated 1784,

appeared at the Alphonse Kann sale, 6 Dec. 1920;

acquired by David-Weill.

15. Abbé Desnoyers, Les Collectionneurs Orléanais,

excerpted in Bulletins de la Société archéologique et historique de l'Orléanais (Orléans, 1880), 7, assumes that

the 1800 sale catalogue repeats the "true catalogue

written by Haudry himself," which was probably lost

after his death. The sale catalogue is not included

in Lugt, but there is one copy at the Bibliothèque

Nationale, Paris, and another at the municipal library

in Orléans. The collector Vandeberghe, who purchased

Houdon's bust from the Haudry sale, was part of a

large dynasty of refiners of white sugar and was

undoubtedly the son of Desfriches' friend Georges III

Vandeberghe-Villebouré; see Cuénin 1997, 43, ioi,

225, 287 n. 8, 293 n. 2i.

16. Scherf 2001,158-160.

117

Jean-Marie Maudit, called Larive (1747-1827)

Dated 1784

White marble with gray inclusions

H. 67.5 cm (with base: 81 cm), W. 62 cm, D. 31 cm

Inscribed on truncation of right arm: HOUDON. F:/ 1784.

Comédie-Française, Paris (inv. 8.178)

Houdon portrayed several artists associated with the Comédie

Française in Paris, including Gluck, Molière, Voltaire (see cats.

10, ii, 23-25), and the renowned actor Jean-Marie Maudit, called

Delarive or Larive. As with his bust of the singer Sophie Arnould

(cats. 8-9), Houdon depicted Larive performing in a specific

role, that of Brutus in Voltaire's play La Mort de César. In a pose

charged with dramatic tension, Larive turns his head, his eyes

focused to the extreme right, his brow furrowed in thought, an

expression of alertness and determination on his face. He is

contemplating the imminent murder of Caesar. The actor wears

a Roman toga draped in deep folds across his chest and held at

the right shoulder with an ornate fibula; a cord with a beautifully

carved tassel pulls up the sleeve of the toga to reveal the arm

that will be raised against the emperor. Larive's hair, short with

soft curls, is dressed in the Roman manner.

According to contemporary accounts, Houdon created a

speaking likeness of his sitter. Gerhard Anton von Halem wrote

in his travel journal of his visit to Houdon's studio in 1790:

"Also very pleasing to me was the animated bust of the actor la

Rive. I just saw him act in [Le] Cid and Pygmalion and recognized him instantly." According to Bertrand Barère: "Houdon

executed a bust of the tragedian Larive in the role of Brutus.

It is not only a very striking likeness, but is one of the most

beautiful and expressive heads one can imagine, the most beautiful perhaps that Houdon has executed."

Larive began acting in provincial centers such as Tours and

Lyons. He was discovered by the famous actress Hippolyte

Clairon of the Comédie Française. Although twenty-four years

younger than she, he became her protégé and lover, and she

helped promote his career, inviting him in December 1770 to

perform in Paris, where he received mixed reviews. In the Correspondance littéraire of January 1771 he was judged harshly: "As

for M. Larive, the public, after having seen him in several roles,

conferred upon him the honors of mediocrity; I doubt that he

will ever merit more than that." After retreating to work in

Brussels, Larive returned to Paris and in April 1775 became a

member of the Comédie Française, where he distinguished

himself in major roles until his retirement in 1788, returning

briefly as a freelance actor in 1790. Reversing its earlier judgment, the Correspondance littéraire praised him generously

in 1775: "With strong and noble features, an elegant figure, a

natural and graceful carriage, he has a voice as soft as it is resonant ... pure and distinct pronunciation and all of the quality

that grace can give to youth.... The greatest strength of our

119

!3
i. Roman, Caracalla, third century AD, marble, Museo Nazionale, Naples. 2. Houdon, Alexander the Great, 1784, marble, Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw.

young actor is to speak in a tragedy and to speak without exaggeration and without taking liberties."6

Larive was admired for his declamatory skills, although his

performances were often criticized for exaggerated gestures and

lack of emotional depth. Among his most successful roles was

that of Brutus in La Mori de César. Written in 1743, the play was

performed at the Comédie-Française twenty-five times between

1781 and 1790. There were four performances in 1784, the date

of this bust. Voltaire's play, with its theme of the virtuous patriot

overthrowing a tyrant, had special resonance during the period

leading up to and during the French Revolution.

The circumstances under which the bust of Larive was

commissioned are not known. Houdon may have met the

actor through his acquaintances in the Comédie Française or

perhaps through Voltaire and the masonic Loge des Neuf

Soeurs to which Voltaire and Houdon belonged. Larive, also a

freemason, participated in the ceremony of Voltaire's initiation

into the Loge des Neuf Soeurs on 7 April 1778. Representing

Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, the actor placed a crown of

laurel leaves on the writer's head. It is probable that Larive,

who was independently wealthy, commissioned his own bust,

since it remained in his family and was given to the Comédie

Française by his son in 1827.

9

As has been pointed out by other writers, Houdon draws

on an antique prototype for his portrait of Larive. In its fierce,

frowning expression, turned head, and toga held by a decorative

fibula, the bust reflects the sculptor's knowledge of the third-century marble head of the Roman emperor Caracalla (fig. i), which

was in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome when Houdon was a student there and was widely admired and copied during the

eighteenth century. Caracalla was an apt model, as he had murdered his brother in order to gain power. It has also been suggested that Houdon must have seen and been influenced by

Michelangelo's bust of Brutus in the Medici collection in Florence.11 There is, however, no evidence that Houdon went to

Florence. It seems more likely that both he and Michelangelo

were aware of the Caracalla as a prototype for the depiction of

Brutus. The costume of a Roman toga held by a fibula is one that

Houdon also used in his idealized historical bust of Alexander

the Great (fig. 2), executed for the king of Poland and exhibited

I2O
FIGURE S I N TH E ART S

at the Salon of 1783 along with the plaster model for the portrait

of Larive. He was to use it again in his portrayal of Prince Henry

of Prussia of 1789 (cat. 54). The bust of Larive is distinguished by

its dramatic power and immediacy. The sculptor successfully

conveys the fact that he is portraying an actor playing the part of

Brutus rather than an historical portrait of Brutus himself.

ANN E L. POULET

PROVENANC E

Collection of the sitter; following his death, given to the Comédie Française

by his son Achille Maudit Larive (1774-1854), Dec. 1827 (see letter in

archives of the Comédie Française, 29 Dec. 1827, from M. Lemazurier,

secretary of the administrative committee of the Comédie Française, to M.

Larive, accepting the gift).

EXHIBITION S

Paris, Salon cat. 1785, 48, no. 227; Paris 1928, 32, no. 14; Versailles 1928,

25, no. 27; Vitry 1937, pi. XXXIV; La Comédie-Française, 1680-1962 [exh.

cat., Château de Versailles] (Versailles, 1962), 68, no. 181; London 1972, 253,

no. 392.

REFERENCE S

Observations critiques sur les tableaux du Sallon àe l'année 1785... (Paris, 1785),

23 (Deloynes XIV, no. 326); Le Peintre anglais au salon âe peintures exposées

au Louvre en l'année 1785 (Paris, 1785), 29 (Deloynes XIV, no. 327); Soulavie

1785,34 (Deloynes XIV, no. 331); "Exposition des tableaux au Louvre. Année

littéraire" (1785), 768 (Deloynes XIV, no. 349); "Exposition des tableaux au

Sallon du Louvre, 1785. Journal général de France," 940 (Deloynes XIV, no.

363); Observateurs sur le Sallon de 1785, extraites du Journal général de France

(Paris, 1785), 32 (Deloynes XIV, no. 363); "Sciences et arts. Exposition.. .dans

le Sallon du Louvre," Mercure de France (i Oct. 1785), 18; Mémoires de

B[ertrand] Barère (Paris, 1844), 4:246-247; Corr. littéraire, 14:297; Henry

Jouin, "Le Musée de portraits d'artistes, II," NAAF, yd ser., 2 (Paris, 1886),

14; Monval 1897, 86, no. 181; Jean-Jacques Olivier, Voltaire et les comédiens,

interprètes de son théâtre (Paris, 1900), 383, no. i; Dacier 1905,175; Giacometti

1918-1919,1:84; 2:112-115; Giacometti 1929, 1:36; 2:36-37, ill. opp. 34;

Vitry i928a, 12; Réau i928a, 343-344; Vitry i937b, 480; Michèle Beaulieu,

"Le Théâtre et la sculpture française au XVllle siècle," Le Jardin des arts, no.

15 (Jan. 1956), 171, ill. p. 168; Réau 1964,1:83, 379-381; 2:35, no. i46b, pi.

LXXIII; Arnason 1975, 65-66, fig. 138, pis. 75, 143^ Noëlle Guibert and

Jacqueline Razgonnikoff, Le Journal de la Comédie-Française, 1787-1799.

La Comédie aux trois couleurs (Paris, 1989), 127, ill.; von Halem (éd. 1990),

188-189.

RELATE D WORK S

Plasters

Paris, Salon cat. 1783,51, no. 251. See L'Impartialité au Sallon dédiée à messieurs

les critiques présens et à venir. (Paris, 1783), 35 (Deloynes XIII, no. 303); Lettre

aux auteurs du Journal de Paris (sur le Salon de 1783) (Paris, 1783), 1008

(Deloynes XIII, no. 312); Corr. littéraire, 13:447.

Posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio, Paris, 15-17 Dec.

1828, no. 48: "Plâtre. Buste de feu Larive, tragédien célèbre"; possibly identical with the plaster bust shown in the Salon of 1783.

Terracotta

Sale, Paris, 29 Dec. 1906, no. 55: "Buste terre cuite représentant en grandeur

nature J. Mauduit de Larive, comédien ordinaire du roi sous Louis XV et

Louis XVI, dans le rôle de Brutus de la Mort de César par Voltaire. Signé:

Houdon, daté 1784." See Réau 1964,1:122.

Private collection, London; inscribed: "HOUDON 1784 LARIVE";

H. 76.5 cm. See Black and Nadeau 1979, no. 30, ill.

Back view of cat. 13

1. Von Halem (ed. 1990), 189.

2. Mémoires de Bertrand] Barère, 1844, 4:247.

Liste alphabétique des sociétaires depuis Molière jusqu'à

nos jours (Paris, 1900), 74, no. 218.

6. Corr. littéraire, 11:73-74, letter of May 1775.

3. For a biography of Larive see H. Lyonnet, Dictionnaire

des comédiens français (Paris, 1902-1908), 1:33-47. 7. See A. Joannidès, La Comédie-Française de 1680 à

1900. Dictionnaire des pièces et des auteurs (Paris, 1901),

4. Corr. littéraire, 9:236-237. XIX, and "Table chronologique des pièces —1784."

5. Georges Monval, Comédie-Française (1658-1900). 8. Annuaire de 5.8.38 de la Loge des Neuf-Soeurs suivi du

procès verbal de la réouverture de ses travaux en tenue

solonnelle du [10 Dec. 1836]... (Paris, 1838), 29; Louis

Amiable, Une loge maçonnique d'avant 1789. La Loge

des Neuf Soeurs, ed. Charles Porset (Paris, 1989), 67.

9. Réau 1964,1:380; and Arnason 1975, 66.

10. See Haskell and Penny 1981,172-173, no. 18.

11. Réau 1964,1:380; and Arnason 1975, 66.

121

* Giuseppe Balsamo,

called Comte Alessandro Cagliostro (1743-1795)

Dated 1786

White marble with gray inclusions and veining

H. 63 cm (with base: 78.1 cm), W. 58.6 cm

Inscribed on truncation of proper right arm: houdon /f. /1786

National Gallery of Art, Washington, Samuel H. Kress Collection (inv. 1952.5.103)

This bust represents Giuseppe Balsamo, who called himself

the comte Alessandro Cagliostro. A charismatic figure who

attracted the attention of intellectuals and aristocrats throughout Europe for his reputed skills as an alchemist, purveyor of

magical medicines, and originator of secret Masonic rites,

Cagliostro was both admired and vilified during his tempestuous life. Born in Palermo, he moved to Rome and married the

beautiful Lorenza Feliciani in 1768. They traveled from city to

city throughout Italy, Spain, and France, arriving in England in

1776. Often received with enthusiasm, if not adulation, they

would hold séances during which base metals were said to be

turned into gold, or stones transformed into large diamonds.

Cagliostro also became famous as a healer. In 1780 he went

to Strasbourg, where he met the cardinal de Rohan, who became

one of his most enthusiastic admirers following Cagliostro's

extraordinary cure of his cousin the prince de Soubise. Similarly, Jacob Sarasin, a wealthy Basel silk merchant, credited

Cagliostro with the miraculous cure of his wife and became one

of the Italian's most faithful and generous supporters.

In London Cagliostro founded a new Masonic lodge, the

mystic Egyptian Rite, which drew members from the nobility

and intelligentsia all over Europe. As its leader, he gave himself

the title Grand Cophta. Freemasonry became an important

source of income and support for Cagliostro, with lodges established in Poland, Switzerland, Germany, and France. He traveled, lived, and dressed opulently. When doubts were cast on

his cures or séances, or when a threat of arrest or discovery

presented itself, he and his wife would flee. On 27 January 1785

they left Lyons for Paris, where Cagliostro was to have an enormous, if brief, success.

Although undocumented, it is probable that Houdon and

Cagliostro met in Paris through their Masonic associations,

sometime between Cagliostro's arrival in the city on 30 January and Houdon's departure for the United States in mid-July

with Benjamin Franklin to carry out the commission for a portrait of George Washington. Houdon was ill in February, however, and probably did not meet Cagliostro and work on his

portrait until March or April, leaving only a few months during

which he could have done the original bust. Houdon had

become a member of the Loge des Neuf Soeurs in 1778, through

which he had obtained other important portrait commissions,

such as those of Voltaire and John Paul Jones (cats. 23-25 and

44). Houdon submitted a bust of Cagliostro to the Salon of 1785;

but when Cagliostro, along with his wife and the cardinal de

123

14
i. Christophe Guerin, Cagliostro,

1781, engraving, Universitatsbibliothek, Basel, department of prints

and drawings.

Rohan, was arrested on 22 August for his alleged participation

in the affair of the queen's diamond necklace, the work was

withdrawn from exhibition. The material of the bust sent to

the Salon is not recorded, but it was Houdon's custom to show

a plaster bust, then execute marble versions that were commissioned based on the plaster.

Houdon depicted Cagliostro as a heavy-set middle-aged

man, in an almost half-length format, with his arms defined

separately from his body and cut several inches above the elbow.

Following the eighteenth-century French convention for portraits of artists, scientists, and men of letters, his collar is open.

Most striking is the pose of the head, which turns up to the sitter's left, the eyes focused in the distance with a look of otherworldly inspiration. The lips are parted, and the teeth are visible.

Cagliostro does not wear a wig. His head is bald on the top, but

his hair is very long on the sides, where it is rolled over his ears

and gathered in a bow at the nape of his neck, with loose curls

falling over the collar of his coat.

The pose used by Houdon is similar to that which appeared

in a print of Cagliostro made in Strasbourg in 1781 when the

Italian healer first met the cardinal de Rohan (fig. i), a work

with which Houdon was doubtless familiar. As a means of

spreading his fame and satisfying admirers, Cagliostro had distributed images of himself from about 1780 on, in the form of

prints, decorative objects such as fans and snuffboxes, and

small sculptures. A small plaster bust of Cagliostro wearing a

Roman toga, in the Historisches Museum, Basel (fig. 2), may

be one of these propaganda pieces. Houdon's bust is of a type

he employed to depict the inspired artist, seen a decade earlier

in his bust of Cluck (cat. 10). The sculptor has succeeded in

representing the corpulence and physical idiosyncrasies of the

sitter—an extraordinarily good likeness, according to contemporary accounts—with an expression of lively intelligence,

wiliness, and spiritual preoccupation.

The period during which Houdon could have executed the

two marble busts dated 1786 was also very short. He did not

return from the United States until 25 December 1785. The two

busts must therefore have been done following his return—

and probably before 31 May, when the sitter was acquitted of

any wrongdoing in the affair of the queen's necklace and

released from prison. Welcomed by throngs of well-wishers,

Cagliostro was forced by order of the king to leave the country almost immediately, and he never returned to France, dying

in a prison in Italy in 1795.

Eighteenth-century documents indicate that Houdon did

at least two marble busts of Cagliostro, but it is not clear which

of these, if either, is identical with the present bust. In 1785

Ramond de Carbonnieres, a close friend and advisor to the

cardinal de Rohan and assistant to Cagliostro from 1781 to 1786,

wrote that Cagliostro had a bust of himself by Houdon in his

house in Paris and that it was destined for a Masonic temple in

Lyons, the Loge de la Sagesse Triomphante. It is often said in

the literature that this bust is now in the Musee Granet, Aix-enProvence. A marble bust of Cagliostro, presumably by Houdon,

is mentioned as belonging to Jacques Sarasin, the silk merchant

in Basel who was one of Cagliostro's most ardent defenders.

The bust is described by a young German cleric on 28 November 1786 as being displayed in an oval boudoir of the first floor

of Sarasin's magnificent house overlooking the Rhine.6

ANN E L. POULET

2. Attributed to "Ja... de Viller,"

Bust of Cagliosto, ca. 1781,

biscuit porcelain, Historisches

Museum, Basel.

124
F I G U R S I N T H E A R T S

Back view of cat. 14

Giacometti 1929,1:199, ^- °PP- P-I2^; 2:25-27; Commemorative Catalogue

of the Exhibition of French Art, 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London,

January-March, 1932 (Oxford, 1933), 214-215, cat. 1017; Haavard Rostrup,

J.-A. Houdon (1741-1828) (Copenhagen, 1942), 30-31; Cecil 1950,172 n. 25,

figs. 19, 24; R.F.C., "Noti e commenti. Il quindicesimo anniversario délia

National Gallery de Washington," Emporium 124, no. 740 (Aug. 1956), 71;

Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection (National Gallery of Art,

Washington, 1956), 18, 236-237, cat. 95, ill.; Alfred R. Weber, "Cagliostro

in den Augen seiner Zeitgenossen" in Basler Jahrbuch, 1959 (Basel, 1960),

166-167,17°' Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection

(National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959), 457, ill.; Germain Seligman,

Merchants of Art, 1880-1960: Eighty Years of Professional Collecting (New York,

1961), 273; Charles Seymour Jr., Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of

Paintings and Sculptures in the Samuel H. Kress Collection (London, 1961),

192-193, figs. 182,183; Malcolm Vaughn, "Mr. Kress and the American

People," The Connoisseur 148, no. 598 (Dec. 1961), 287, ill.; Réau 1964,

1:104-105, 150; 344-347; 2:27-28, no. 95; Cecil 1965, 455-456, fig. n;

Jean Montague Massengale, "A Franklin by Houdon Rediscovered," Marsyas

12 (1964-1965), 6-9, fig. 12; Arnason 1975,25,82,88 n. 202,116, fig. 166,

pi. no; Ulrich Middeldorf, Sculptures from the Samuel H. Kress Collection:

European Schools, Fourteenth-Nineteenth Century (London, 1976), 111-112,

figs. 188,189; NGA cat. 1994,109, ill.

PROVENANC E

Possibly identical with bust sold in Paris, [Galerie Georges Petit], 22-24

Nov. 1826, no. 208, as "Un Buste en marbre de Cagliostro par M. Houdon."

More recent history: Collection of Richard Seymour Conway, fourth marquess of Hertford (1800-1870), said to have been acquired in Paris ca. 1860;

by inheritance to his illegitimate son, Sir Richard Wallace (1818-1890), at

2 rue Laffite, Paris; by inheritance to his wife, Lady Wallace (1819-1897);

by inheritance to Sir John Murray Scott (1847-1912); by inheritance to

Josephine Victoria Sackville-West, Lady Sackville (1864-1936), who sold it

to Jacques Seligmann, Paris, in 1914 (stock no. 13273; JPGM archives, no.

89.P-7); looted by the Germans from Seligmann in early 19405; recovered

by Seligmann by 8 Feb. 1947; Samuel H. Kress Collection, New York (inv.

Ki907), 1952.

E X H IBITION S

L'Art au XVIIIe siècle [exh. cat., Galerie Georges Petit] (Paris, 1883-1884),

78, no. 250; possibly Catalogue de l'exposition de l'art français sous Louis XIV

et sous Louis XV [exh. cat., Ecole des beaux-arts, Hôtel de Chimay] (Paris,

1888), 37, no. 77; Paris 1894, no. 212; Paris 1908, no. 131; London 1932,464,

no. 1005; Washington 1976,144-145, 370, no. 228.

REFERENCE S

Montaiglon and Duplessis 1855, 263; Charles Yriarte, "Le Buste de

Cagliostro," La Chronique des arts et de la curiosité, no. 32 (20 Oct. 1888),

252-253; Jean Thorel, "L'Exposition de Marie-Antoinette et son temps,"

GBA, 3rd ser., n (1894), 62; Dilke 1900,137; Charles Yriarte, "Mémoires de

Bagatelle," Revue de Paris, no. 18 (15 Sept. 1903), 48; Gonse 1904, 24-26;

Brière and Vitry 1908,173-175, no. 131; Vitry 19083, 26, 28, ill. on cover;

Vitry I9o8c, 26; Frantz Funck-Bretano, L'Affaire du Collier d'après de nouveaux documents (Paris, 1910), 95-96,101-102, ill. p. 84; Lami 1910-1911,

1:428; Brière 1913, 357-361; Giacometti 1918-1919, 2:97-98; Jean-Louis

Vaudoyer, "Les Houdons d'Aix," L'Art et les artistes, n.s. 10 (1925), 113-115;

RELATE D WORK S

Houdon submitted a portrait of Cagliostro to the Salon of 1785 (medium

not recorded). The bust was withdrawn 24 August after Cagliostro was

arrested on 22 August for his alleged role in the affair of the diamond necklace. During Cagliostro's interrogation in the Bastille on 24 August, he stated

that the cardinal de Rohan had in his house two busts and one engraving of

Cagliostro (AN, F74459, Affaire du Collier: "Interrogé si ses relations avec

M. le cardinal ne lui témoignait pas les plus grandes déférences et les plus

grands égards A répondu que oui, que même le cardinal a placé deux de

ses bustes et sa gravure dans son appartement"). In a letter from London,

20 June 1786, Cagliostro complained of being persecuted by the baron de

Breteuil and observed: "Mais avois-je présenté cette requête, lorsque, voyant mon buste chez le Cardinal [de Rohan], il [Breteuil] dit, avec colère entre

les dents, 'on voit partout cette figure, il faut que cela finisse, cela finera?'"

(StAB, 212 Fu, 33, Jacob Sarasins Briefwechtel, vol. 33, no. 15). If one or

both of these busts was by Houdon, as is probable, the material was most

likely plaster, as both the present marble bust and the one in the Musée

Granet in Aix-en-Provence are dated 1786.

Plasters

Posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio, Paris, 15-17 Dec. 1828,17,

no. 31: "Plâtre peint, Buste de Joseph Balsamo, dit Cagliostro, mort au château

de Saint-Léon en 1795" (16 francs) (see Réau 1964,1:118,119); probably the

terracotta-colored bust that appears in the two paintings by Boilly of Houdon's

studio (cat. 66).

Collection of Raymond Storelli, great-grandson of Jean-Charles Thilorier, the Parlement lawyer who defended Cagliostro in the necklace trial

(see Yriarte 1888, 252-253; and Le Comte de Cagliostro. Le Prince noir [exh.

cat., Les Baux de Provence, 1989], 4-5) and who received his bust as a gift,

according to a letter of 18 June 1888 from André Storelli to Richard Wallace

(WCA, file 25K). Two photographs of the Storelli bust in the WCA (file 25K)

show Cagliostro's coat with five large buttons, a feature not found on any

other known version of the bust.

125
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (inv. 62.18); white plaster; H. 80 cm;

sale Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 4-5 Mar. 1921, 60, no. 167 (47,000 francs).

Marble

Musee Granet, Aix-en-Provence (inv. 860.1.2598); white marble with gray

veins and inclusions; H. 65.1 cm (with base: 81 cm), W. 58 cm; inscribed:

"houdon / f 1786"; from collection of Bourguignon de Fabregoules as a bust

of Italian musician Paesiello. See L. de Montigny, "Au Louvre et au Musee

d'Aix-en-Provence: Une double rectification," Revue historique de Provence,

no. 6 (June 1901), 362-363; Gonse 1904,24-25, ill.; Briere 1913,357-360,

ill. opp. p. 358; Vaudoyer 1925,113-115; Louis Gillet, "Visites aux musees de

Province," La Revue des deux mondes 5 (15 Sept. 1932), 324-325.

Bronzes

Zarine sale, Paris, 5 Dec. 1917, no. 45: "Petit buste de Cagliostro. Bronze patine

d'apres Houdon. Socle forme par un rut de colonne en marbre bleu turquih."

Plaquette based on the bust by Houdon, published in Leo Planiscig, Die

Estensische Kunstsammlung, vol. i, Skulpturen und Plastiken des Mittelalters

und der Renaissance (Vienna, 1919), 198, no. 438, pi. 31.

Print

Engraving by Parisot after painting by Bondeville; inscribed: "Peint par

Bondeville, d'apres le buste de M. Houdon et grave par Parisot/' BNEst.

Signature on cat. 14

1. For Cagliostro's biography see Constantin Photiades,

Les Vies du comte de Cagliostro (Paris, 1932).

2. See S. P. Hardy, "Mes loisirs ou journal des evenements tels qu'ils parviennent a ma connaissance. Commence le vingt et un septembre 1784" (BN, F 6685,

6:168). For an account of the affair of the diamond

necklace see Funck-Brentano 1910.

3. These portraits are mentioned in two letters written

to Jacques Sarasin in Basel by Rey de Morande from

Bordeaux on behalf of Cagliostro (StAB, 212.Fn, 33,

no. 4). On 10 Jan. 1784: "plusieurs libraires m'ont

assure avoir demande a Strasbourg des Estampes de

notre Maitre, mais il n'en a pas encore paru: Je suis en

consequence persuade que vous feriez grand plaisir a

notre Maitre de lui en envoyer deux doduzaines pour

distribution aux gens qui 1'aiment, car ce n'est qu'apres

beaucoup de sollicitations que je suis parvenu a obtenir

une de celles qu'il avait apporte." On 17 Jan. 1784: "je

viens vous renouveller de sa part la priere que je vous

ai deja faite ci devant, de lui envoyer une douzaine, ou

une douzaine et demi de ces memes gravures, & d'y

joindre si cela vous est possible Deux de ses petits

bustes, en lui adressant le tout en droiture par la plus

prompte voie."

4. See Burkard von Roda et al., Le Musee historique de

Bale (Basel, 1994), 117, no. 172.

5. See Henri Beraldi, Le. Passe du Pyreneisme. Ramond

de Carbonnieres, le cardinal de Rohan, Caglistro (Paris,

1911-1920), 4:306. See also Vie de Joseph Balsamo

connu sous le now de comte de Gagliostro [sic]... (Paris

and Strasbourg, 1791), 43,165; and Antoine Pericaud, Sejour de Cagliostro a Lyon, de 1784 a 1785

(Lyons, 1832), 8.

6. Christian Gottlieb Schmidt, Von der Schweitz.

Journal meiner Reises vom 5. Julius 1786 bis den 7. August

1787, ed. Theodor and Hanni Salfmger (Bern, 1985),

195, 365 n. 768. See also Oeuvres dej. M. Ph. Roland,

femme de I'ex-ministre de I'interieur (Paris, [1799-1800]),

3:367; and Weber 1960,166-167,17

Q

-

126
* Alexandre Brongniart (1770-1847)

1777

Terracotta on gray marble base

H. 36.4 cm (with base: 44.9 cm), W. 26.4 cm, D. 24 cm

Inscribed on center back support: Alexandre / Brongniart /par Houdon

Musée du Louvre, Paris, département des sculptures (inv. RF 1280)

15-16

+ Louise Brongniart (1772-1845)

Dated 1777

Terracotta on gray marble base

H. 34.5 cm (with base: 46 cm), W. 24.2 cm, D. 18.0 cm

Inscribed at top of center back support: houdon /1777...

Musée du Louvre, Paris, département des sculptures (inv. RF 1197).

In the Salon catalogue of 1777 the mention of "two other

portraits of M. Brognard's children" (no. 246) under "Marble

Busts" follows several busts in marble but precedes one in

terracotta, which makes the listing ambiguous. Since the Paris

exhibition of 1928, art historians have considered a marble bust

of Louise Brongniart that then belonged to the dealer G. Franck

to be the one shown at the Salon of 1777 (but missing its male

counterpart). Giacometti wrote a "major report" appraising

the work, and Réau was enthusiastic. This marble, without

any reliable provenance, was purchased in 1985 by the J. Paul

Getty Museum. Its quality is a matter of discussion today; the

Brongniart children were very popular in the nineteenth and

twentieth centuries and were abundantly reproduced, sometimes with fanciful variations in the clothing (see Related

Works). The very high quality of the Louvre busts, their irreproachable provenance through direct descendants of the

family, and the fact that the 1777 Salon catalogue does not rule

out the hypothesis that the pieces exhibited were terracottas,

all support the probability that these are Houdon's original

works. To this author's knowledge, and according to currently

identified documents, there is no proof that autograph marble busts ever existed.

Alexandre and Louise were the children of architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, a friend and collaborator of

Clodion and acquaintance of Hubert Robert. Elisabeth VigéeLebrun, a dose family friend, painted portraits of Alexandre and

Louise in 1778 and did one of their sister Emilie in 1788 (born

in 1780). It is not known why Houdon was chosen to sculpt

the children's portraits. Might he have been introduced to

Brongniart by Clodion, a fellow student of Houdon's in Rome?

The architect did not have any other works by Houdon in his

collection, if we are to believe the catalogue of his posthumous

sale, whereas he did collect Clodion terracottas in particular.

By 1776-1777 Houdon was already famous, as proven by

the impressive and diverse list of his submissions to the Salon.

He had displayed an interest in portraying children as early as

his student days in Italy, showing a marble head of a child at

his first Salon in 1769 that elicited praise. In 1774 he signed and

dated a superb portrait of a child in terracotta that may depict

the son of the vicomte de Noailles (fig. i). The rounded truncation and absence of clothing anticipated the presentation of

Louise Brongniart three years later. In 1779 the sculptor also

exhibited, at the Société des beaux-arts in Montpellier, a "head

9

of a small child" and "another head of a child" (nos. 184-185).

127


i. Houdon, Portrait,

Presumed to Be the

Son of the Vicomte

de Noailles, 1774,

terracotta, Private

Collection.

colors. For Alexandre, the iris is not carved but rendered with

two concentric rows of radiating incisions to give the impression

of light-colored eyes. The pupil is defined by a small depression, with a small element in relief along the edge to catch the

light. Louise's irises, in contrast, are carved into a deep bowl,

with the pupil etched at the bottom. When Jean-Louis Couasnon

did his bust of Emilie Brongniart in 1784 (fig. 4), he reproduced the bowl-shaped iris with its radiating incisions and

the deeply carved pupil, but in other ways his style departed

from Houdon's: the hair is as stiff as straw and the dress has

complicated lines. Houdon was unequaled in his busts of the

Brongniart children, and he surpassed himself only in the

portraits of his own children (see cat. 18).

GUILHE M SCHERF

With all these figures, Houdon was following the interest in

childhood then in vogue. Louis-Claude Vassé had done a few

marvelous portraits that are believed to represent his children10.

Other youthful busts were executed prior to Houdon's by JeanBaptiste II Lemoyne and especially Augustin Pajou. Of the

latter, Little Boy and Little Girl (figs. 2-3), both dated 1772, were

dubiously identified as representing the children of architect

Pierre-Louis Moreau (known as Moreau-Desproux), an old

friend of Pajou. There might be an interesting parallel in this

respect with the Brongniart progeny.

Alexandre, a future geologist and a director of the Manufacture de Sèvres, was depicted at age seven. His sister Louise,

the future Mme Naval de Saint-Aubin and later marquise Picot

de Dampierre, was five at the time. The busts were done with

a charming delicacy and sensitivity: "The Florentines of the

Quattrocento have done nothing more exquisite." The two

works were conceived as a study in contrasts. Alexandre is

dressed, Louise is not (an idea reversed in Pajou's two busts).

He has his lips closed, while she has hers slightly open. His

loose wisps of hair are depicted whimsically—a freedom contradicted by his sensible outfit, though one of its buttons is

undone—whereas her hair is carefully coiffed, with a bun held

in place by a headband topped with a knot. As was his custom,

Houdon incised several lines on the forehead and temples

to define a few strands of hair. The backs of the sculptures are

hollowed out, leaving a central post for reinforcement, and fine

regular scoring of the clay finishes the presentation.

There is a clear distinction in the treatment of Alexandre's

and Louise's eyes, no doubt to represent the difference in their

2-3. Augustin Pajou, Little Boy and Little Girl, 1772, terracotta,

Private Collection.

130
F A M I LY AN D FRIEND S

4. Jean-Louis

Couasnon, Emilie

Brongniart, 1788,

terracotta, Musée

du Louvre, Paris.

Jérôme Pichón (nephew of the sitters); Joseph Bardac collection; Jacques

Seligmann; Joseph Widener collection, Philadelphia; gift to the museum in

1942. See Réau 1964, 2:27, nos. 92-93, pis. XLIII (926) and XLV (93E);

Arnason 1975, no n. 86, figs. 93, 94; NGA cat. 1994, 109, ill. These

marbles are judged "a bit weak" in Gimpel 1963, 23.

Terracottas

National Gallery of Art, Washington (inv. 1942.9.125-126); Imitator of

Houdon, Alexandre, H. 37.7 cm; Louise, H. 35.5 cm; Joseph Bardac collection; acquired in 1917 by the dealer René Gimpel, who sold them to Joseph

Widener for $32,000 (see NGA cat. 1994, in, ill.). Gimpel 1963, 23, says:

"At one time, these terracottas passed for plasters; there exist two that are

more beautiful at the Louvre."

Bronzes

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; H. 43 cm; signed "houdon" (Worcester 1964, 33-35, ill.); Arnason 1975, no n. 86, recognizes the pair as a late

edition, like the pair in The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Editions by the Susse foundry, Thiébaut Frères. See Berman 1974-1977,2:409,

no. 1546, ill. of Louise.

PROVENANC E

Both busts mentioned on Houdon's autograph list (ca. 1784) under the

year 1777: "les bustes d'enfans de Mr Brognard"; collection of AlexandreThéodore Brongniart (1739-1813), father of the sitters; though not listed

in his posthumous inventory (AN, Min. Cent., XVI11,1061, 22 June 1813),

it would be unusual for family portraits to be included in such a document;

by inheritance to his descendants; acquired by the museum in 1898 (Louise)

and 1900 (Alexandre) from Edouard Brongniart, honorary inspector at the

schools of design, Paris.

EXHIBITION S

Both busts possibly listed in Salon cat. 1777, no. 246 (see text above);

Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart 1739-1813. Architecture et décor [exh. cat.,

Musée Carnavalet] (Paris, 1986), nos. 2-3, ill.

REFERENCE S

Délerot et Legrelle 1857,183; André Michel, "Les Acquisitions du département de la sculpture du moyen âge, de la renaissance et des temps

modernes au musée du Louvre," GBA (May 1903), 387-388, ill.; Vitry 1907^

200, no. 43; Giacometti 1929,1:174 (ill. of Louise), 2:21-22 (ill. ofAkxandre);

Louis de Launay, Une grande famille de savants. Les Brongniart (Paris, 1940),

23, 49, ill. facing pp. 52 and 66; Réau 1964, 1:412-413, 2:27, no. 93, pis.

XLIII (92A) andXLlV (93A); Arnason 1975,41, no n. 86, pis. 36,37 (détails);

Louvre cat. 1998,424-425, ill.

RELATE D WORK S

Numerous versions in terracotta, marble, or bronze, with various dates and

dimensions.

Biscuit porcelains

See Les Oeuvres de la Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, n.d. [1933], nos. 121,

122, pi. 54, as models done under the first Empire.

Back view of cat. 15

•f- Alexandre and Louise -4-

Marbles

National Gallery of Art, Washington (inv. 1942.9.123-124); Alexandre, H.

39.2 cm, W. 28.7 cm, D. 19 cm; inscribed on back edge of truncation:

"HOUDON, F. AN. 1777"; Louise, H. 37.7 cm, W. 25.3 cm, D. 19.5 cm; Baron

I3I
4- Alexandre 4-

Plaster

Formerly Pierre Lebaudy collection; H. 50 cm; cachet de l'atelier, acquired in

comte de la Perrière sale, 2-4 Dec. 1912, no. 43, ill.; see Giacometti 1929,

2:21.

4- Louise 4

Plaster

Formerly Galerie Jacques Bacri, Paris, H. 45 cm; see Réau 1964, 2:27,

no. 93, pi. XLIV (936): "plâtre original."

Marble

J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (inv. 85.SA.22o); H. 46 cm; inscribed on

back: "houdon f."; supposedly from a famous, though unspecified, private

collection in Poland (Vitry 1928^ 62; Réau i928b, 323); G. Franck collection,

Paris (Paris 1928, no. 8 bis; Vitry 19283, ill. after p. 20; Réau i928b, 351-352,

ill.; Giacometti 1929,2:22); Henri de Rothschild collection (Réau 1964,2:27,

no. 93, pi. XLV [930]); Sotheby's, Monte Carlo, 5-6 Feb. 1978, no. 112; art

market; acquired by Getty museum in 1985 (Fusco 1997, 29, ill.).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 14.40.670); with one

scarf on head and another around neck; inscribed: "F[ait] P[ar] Houdon 1779"

(an inscription, to this author's knowledge, without parallel elsewhere);

Joseph Bardac collection, Paris; Benjamin Airman collection, New York; at

the Metropolitan since 1913. See Giacometti 1929,2:30, ill.; Réau 1964,2:27,

no. 93, pi. XLV (93F); Arnason 1975,41, pi. 38 (detail).

Back view of cat. 16

1. Giacometti 1929, 2:22; Réau 1928!}, 352: "one of the

happiest discoveries of the exhibition."

2. Réau's "descendant d'une grande famille polonaise"

is obviously very vague.

3. According to a note from Marcel Aubert in the

Louvre's files, probably dating from the acquisition of

the terracottas, Mme Brongniart was authorized to

commission copies of Louise (and surely oí Alexandre),

but not to have casts done.

4. See Paris 1986; and Paris 1992.

5. See Vigée-Lebrun 1984, 2:96; also 337, where she

mentions the first two paintings under the year 1778:

"2. Les enfants de Brongniard." The third is in the

Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle; see Joseph Baillio,

Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun 1755-1842 [exh. cat.,

Kimbell Art Museum] (Fort Worth, 1982), 35, fig. 2.

6. Paris sale, 22 Mar. 1792.

7. Jean-Claude Pingeron, Réflexions sur quelques

morceaux de peinture et de sculpture, exposés au Ballon

du Louvre...(Paris, 1769), 27 (MacWilliam 1991, 205):

"a little head in white marble... representing a young

child, which, by its sensitivity and its expression, vies

with Antiquity for the most beautiful in this genre."

8. No doubt the "Buste en terre d'un enfant de M.

le vicomte de Noyalles" mentioned on Houdon's

autograph list of 1784 (no year given; see Vitry 1907^

198, no. 27); see also Burlington Magazine (Dec. 1955),

pi. XXV.

9. Stein 1913, 402.

10. See Black 1994, nos. 2a, 33, 43, and 5b, ill.

11. See Little Girl with Scarf, plaster, 1769; in Louvre

cat. 1998,466, ill. Among painters, Drouais may have

been the one most interested in children's portraits.

12. See Henri Stein, Augustin Pajou (Paris, 1912),

30-31, ill.; and Paris and New York 1997-1998,

224-225, 384, ill.

13. Michel 1903, 388.

14. The neat costume "of a serious child, attentive,

deliberately a little austere, who must have been the

Alexandre of that time" (Launay 1940,49).

15. The rounded cut at the back of Alexandre's head

indicates that the head was hollowed before firing; the

joint became very apparent, presumably during firing.

The dorsal reinforcements of the two busts were added

in plaster after firing, the one on the portrait of Louise

more recently.

16. See Haavard Rostrup, Grandeurs et misères de JeanAntoine Houdon (Paris, 1973), 17. It is obvious that

Houdon wanted to give the impression of light and

dark eyes. In a posthumous painting of Alexandre

(Manufacture de Sèvres), Emile Wattier, who knew

the sitter, portrayed him with light, grayish green eyes

(the author thanks Tamara Préaud for this detail).

17. See Michèle Beaulieu, "Le Buste d'Emilie

Brongniart par J. L. Couasnon," Revue du Louvre,

no. 2 (1974); and Louvre cat. 1998,159, ill.

I32
* Mme Houdon,

née Marie-Ange-Cécile Langlois (1765-1823)

Probably 1786

Plaster on plaster base

H. 48.5 cm (with base: 61.5 cm), W. 39.5 cm, D. 26.7 cm

Musée du Louvre, Paris, département des sculptures (inv. RF 1391)

Houdon may have met Marie-Ange-Cécile Langlois, his future

wife, through Mme His, née Marie-Anne De Vatre, who was

the bride's witness at the couple's prénuptial agreement on

12 June 1786. Mlle De Vatre was a childhood friend of Mile

Langlois, and Houdon had done a bust of her in 1774. She

married a banker, François Pierre His, who had an office and

a home in Paris.

Marie-Ange was born in Paris, in the parish of Saint-Sulpice3.

She was the daughter of Jean Langlois, an "employee in the

service of the king," and married Houdon on i July 1786 in

Saint-Philippe-dû-Roule, soon after his return from America in

January 1786. She was an Anglophile, and her adoptive mother,

the comtesse de Villegagnon, married Thomas Walpole, Horace

Walpole's cousin, in 1787 (it was her second marriage). MarieAnge had some experience as a translator and regularly handled

her husband's correspondence and accounts, carefully looking

after his interests.

At the Salon of 1787 Houdon exhibited a "Head of young

girl. In plaster" (no. 258), which Paul Vitry in 1906 identified

as the smiling young wife of the sculptor, represented in the

superb plaster at the Musée du Louvre, which had belonged to

the family. The work was praised, but with reservations, by a

critic at the Salon: "His head of a young girl rivals the most

graceful works of antiquity. The proportions of the features;

the soft, supple contours; the elasticity of the flesh; the lively,

sweet, naïve physiognomy are the admiration of connoisseurs

and astonish even the ignorant. Dazzling whiteness, grace,

voluptuousness, ease of muscular movement: that is what one

notices in the neck and head. The rest, however, is not irreproachable. It is annoying that the artist, fatigued by the masterpiece of the head, placed the breasts a little too low

Perhaps that's the fault of the sitter." There are few portraits

of Mme Houdon, but this bust may be compared to a miniao

ture painted about 1792 (fig. i), in which one recognizes the

same abundant hair, regular features, and large eyes, but

assuredly not the blank expression.

The Louvre bust is an original plaster, cast in a waste mold

made from the terracotta bust (which was destroyed in the

process of removing the mold); the single seam line of the mold

is clearly visible on the shoulders and the top of the head. The

terracotta in the Frick collection in Pittsburgh (fig. 2) is a cast

made from the Louvre plaster (when it was still owned by the

Houdon family), hence the difference in the dimensions, which

9

resulted from shrinkage of the clay during firing. Florence

!7

!33

FAMIL Y AN D FRIEND S

i. Louis Lie Perin-Salbreux, Mme Houdon, ca. 1792, miniature on ivory,

Musee du Louvre, Paris.

break free from stray wisps of hair. As was his habit, Houdon

carved fine lines on the forehead and temples to indicate a few

strands of hair (he evokes the general composition of the

hairstyle in Sabine Houdon at Age Four, see fig. 3). The smile is

broad, with a clearly visible row of teeth. The iris is carved into

the shape of a bowl to create a vibrant gaze. Her dimples and

the curves at the top part of her breasts add to the figure's

irresistible charm. The back was hollowed out, then filled with

plaster at an unknown date. There is no inscription, as this work

truly belongs to the artist's private, intimate sphere.

GUILHE M SCHERF

Ingersoll-Smouse has postulated that "the terracotta is possibly the original work and that Houdon executed the plaster bust

now in the Louvre from it." But that piece cannot be the clay

model, destroyed during the production of the original plaster;

and examination reveals that it is clearly a terracotta cast in

a mold.

A label on a version of the bust sold in Paris in 1928 (see

Related Works) indicates that two casts were made from the

Louvre plaster around 1872 with the permission of its owner,

Mme Sand, Claudine Houdon's granddaughter. This operation

seems to have left indelible traces on the work: yellowish stains

that could be remnants of separation agents used to remove the

cast. Following the aftercastings, the work was covered probably with a coat of paint. Gaston Briere described the state of

the surface about 1905: "dirty patina, a layer of oil clogging the

contours, muddy and grayish, modern." According to Vitry,

the plaster had received "a few layers of paint intended to revive

its brilliance, which had coated it in a peculiar manner. Prior

to its arrival at the museum, it was cleaned and the paint layers

removed, virtually down to the raw plaster, a treatment that

some considered rather radical." But the bust had been irremediably spoiled; in a beautiful photograph published in 1911

one can clearly make out the stains on the upper torso. In

1959 an attempt was made to improve the bust's appearance:

the plaster was treated with bisulfate of soda, and some marks

removed with a tool; but brown stains persisted. Since then,

care has been taken not to touch the work, which has suffered

so much from the handling of its admirers.

Marie-Ange-Cecile is depicted here with a breezy, disordered

hairstyle in a fanciful arrangement (especially in the back). Her

hair is pulled up into a bun by a headband, while rows of beads

2. Houdon, Mme

Houdon, 1787,

terracotta, Frick Art

Museum, Pittsburgh.

3. Houdon, Sabine

Houdon at Age Four,

1791, plaster, Musee du

Louvre, Paris.

135
Back view of cat. 17

PROVENANC E

Probably executed before i July 1786, the date of Houdon's marriage to

the sitter. Remained in the sculptor's home, then with his descendants:

daughter Claudine Houdon (Mme Desire Raoul-Rochette); her daughter

Josephine (wife of Luigi Calamatta); her daughter Mme Maurice Sand; her

daughters. Acquired from M. Lemaire, 1905.

EXHIBITION S

Possibly Paris, Salon of 1787, no. 258: "Tete de jeune fille. En platre."

REFERENCE S

Vitry 1906,341-346, ill.; Vitry 1914; Vitry 19283, ill. 15; Giacometti 1929,1:42,

ill, 2:74-75; Frick 1947; Reau 1950,178; Reau 1964,1:417-418,2:33, no. 135,

pi. 64; Arnason 1975, 84, fig. 172, pi. Ill; Louvre cat. 1998,425, ill.; Sauerlander 2002, 50-53, fig. 24.

RELATE D WORK S

Terracotta?

Sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 25-26 Oct. 1928, no. 142: "Buste de femme en

terre cuite [sic], sur piedouche en marbre, porte I'etiquette avec 1'inscription

suivante: Buste d'apres Houdon representant Madame Houdon, une des

deux epreuves tirees vers 1872 (sur le platre qui est au Louvre) par Madame

Sand, belle-fille de George Sand et petite-fille de Houdon"; possibly plaster

painted terracotta color.

Plasters

Two plasters are cited in Reau 1964,2:33: one formerly in the Edmond Courty

collection, Chatillon-sous-Bagneux (no. 135A, pi. LXV); the other painted

a terracotta color, with cachet de I'atelier (?), from the Galerie Souffrice, Paris,

presumably the one sold at the Hotel Drouot, Paris, 27-28 Feb. 1986, no.

245, ill; then Sotheby's, New York (H. 58 cm), 31 May 1990, no. 177, ill.

Variant with rounded truncation

Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh (1973.3) (fig. 2); terracotta; H. 38 cm (without

base); from Sabine Houdon; to her son Edouard Pineu-Duval; then his son

Richard, who never married; passed on to his cousin Antoine Perron; acquired

by Duveen Brothers; sold to J. Pierpont Morgan, New York (Vitry 1914,

218-223, fig. i); acquired by Helen Clay Frick in 1937 (Frick 1947, fig. i).

Round relief

Musee du Petit Palais, Paris, as gift of Joseph Duveen (Reau 1964,1:446,

2:57, no. 275, pi. CXLI); round medallion with a double female portrait in

profile; terracotta; diam. 43 cm; inscribed along left edge: "houdon f. / an 7";

Doucet sale, 1912, no. 115, ill. The work, of modest quality, has been thought

to represent Mme Houdon and thirteen-year-old Sabine, but this identification—particularly compared with the profile painted by Boilly in his

1804 version of Houdon in His Studio (see cat. 66, fig. i)—and the style of

the relief are hardly convincing.

1. BMV, F 945(1), no. 3; Frick 1947, 208.

2. The date of the marble (Private Collection);

see Reau 1964, 2:33, no. 131, pi. LXII. A beautiful

plaster, recently restored, is at the Musee des arts

decoratifs, Paris.

3. BMV, F 945(2), nos. 4 and 5; Frick 1947, 207.

4. BMV, F 945(1), no. 18.

5. Her mother, Franchise Cecile Lorteau, died a month

after giving birth to Marie-Ange, whose will of 9 Mar.

1815 refers to Mme Walpole as "sole source of my

fortune and our mother by her tenderness, her care,

and her steadfast kindnesses" (Frick 1947, 212).

6. She translated, most notably, Mme Dymmer's

Belmour for a French edition in 1804.

7. Tarare au Sallon de peinture (Deloynes XV, no. 377;

MacWilliam 1991,444).

8. Acquired by the Louvre from Henry Perron, the

sculptor's great-grandson, in 1905; see Versailles 1928,

no. 88; Paris 1928, no. 103; Giacometti 1929,1:186, ill.;

and Jean-Richard 1994, 280, no. 516, ill.

9. Vitry 1906, 345-346, describes this terracotta as

"intended to preserve the memory of this familial

image at the home of Houdon's elder daughter."

The head is smaller, and the breast is cut higher.

10. Florence Ingersoll-Smouse, "Quelques documents

et lettres relatifs au voyage (1785) et aux ceuvres

de Jean-Antoine Houdon aux Etats-Unis," BSHAF

(1914), 293.

11. Handwritten note by Gaston Briere (files in the

departement des sculptures, Musee du Louvre).

12. Vitry 1906, 346.

13. Hart and Biddle 1911, 256.

136
i8

* Antoinette-Claude,

called Claudine Houdon (1790-1878)

Circa 1793

White marble on white marble base with black and gray veins

H. 24.7 cm (with base: 43 cm), W. 29.2 cm, D. 19.4 cm

Inscribed on back, under right shoulder: houdonf.

Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts, Museum Purchase, Stoddard Acquisition Fund (inv. 1964.17)

The Houdons had three daughters: Sabine, Anne-Ange, and

Antoinette-Claude, called Claudine. Sabine was born 25 February 1787 and died 7 April 1836. She married Henry Jean

Pineu-Duval, an interior ministry employee, in 1805 and had

two children: their daughter married Auguste Perron (and a

descendant sold a terracotta of Claudine in the early twentieth

century); their son Edouard Duval had a son who never married. Anne-Ange, who was baptized 15 December 1788 and

died 28 October 1843, married a doctor, Jean-Baptiste-Esprit

Louyer de Villermay, in 1806. Their only son, Eugène de Villermay, died childless, and his widow (née Berthe de Moréal), "having taken religious vows, appears to have dispersed what she

possessed of Houdon's inheritance among her own family.5"

Claudine was born 29 October 1790 and died 17 April 1878.

She married an archaeologist, Désiré Raoul-Rochette, in 18107

and was widowed in 1854. They had two daughters: Joséphine,

who married an engraver, Luigi Calamatta (their daughter Marcelline married Maurice Sand, son of George Sand; their granddaughter Aurore Lauth-Sand donated a plaster bust of Claudine

to the Musée Carnavalet); and Angéline, who married Paul

Perrin (they had three children, including Raoul Perrin, whose

death in 1910 preceded the Perrin-Houdon sale at the Hôtel

Drouot, Paris, on 18 May 1914, with, in particular, a terracotta

of Claudine; he also had a plaster, purchased by Jacques Doucet).

No portrait explicitly identified as representing a member of

the Houdon family is mentioned in the catalogues of the Salons

except in 1791. "Head of young girl. In plaster" at the Salon of

1787 (no. 258) was probably a bust of Mme Houdon (cat. 17).

"Head of child at ten months" at the Salon of 1789 (no. 246)

was surely the small marble of Sabine, inscribed and dated

"Sabinet Houdon 1788," now at The Metropolitan Museum of

Q

Art, New York (fig. i). The first catalogue of the Salon of 1791,

9

which was withdrawn, mentions a marble of "Sabine Houdon,

belonging to M. Girardot [de Marigny]" (no. 227); this was the

bust of Sabine at age four with a drapery covering her right

shoulder, signed and dated "houdon f. 1791" (fig. 2). It is probably this model that appears on the back shelf at the left in

Houdon's studio as painted by Boilly (cat. 66). Houdon also did

an undraped version of Sabine at age four wearing a headband

in a fanciful hairstyle; he used the same truncation as in her

mother's portrait (cat. 17, fig. 3). The withdrawn catalogue for

the Salon of 1791 (no. 234) lists a plaster of "Mlle Ange Houdon

at fifteen months, " one of three heads of children mentioned

in the second edition of the catalogue (no. 484). At the Salon of

X

37

FAMIL Y AN D FRIEND S

i. Houdon, Sabine Houdon at Ten Months

of Age, ijSS, marble, The Metropolitan Museum

of Art, New York.

2. Houdon, Sabine Houdon at Age Four, 1791,

marble, Private Collection.

3. Houdon, Anne-Ange Houdon at Fifteen

Months of Age, 1791, marble, Private Collection.

1793 Houdon exhibited "a bust of a child in plaster" (no. 123),

which was probably of Claudine. finally, at the Salon of 1806,

the sculptor showed a Mile H. (no. 604), which has sometimes

been identified as a portrait of Sabine as a young lady23.

Thus Houdon was particularly fond of sculpting the features of his three daughters. He represented Sabine, the eldest,

at different ages and in different formats (draped and undraped)

but depicted Anne-Ange and Claudine according to a single

type. The large number of versions of these portraits of his

children, which one might expect to be restricted to the private

sphere, is astonishing. Paul Vitry assumes that Houdon,

urgently in need of money—which impelled him to sell part of

his studio collection in 1795 when he moved—promoted the

sale of images of his children while respecting their anonymity156.

It should be noted that a significant number of the plasters have

come from the sculptor's descendants: the Perrons (Sabine's

progeny) and the Sands and Perrins (Claudine's progeny), who,

in particular, benefited from the early interruption of the

Villermay branch stemming from Anne-Ange.

Several of these busts circulated in Paris in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Houdon's works were

famous and available on the market. Although one must exercise caution regarding some of Houdon's busts of children,16

the marble of Claudine belonging to the Worcester Art Museum

is an unquestioned masterpiece. The sitter is adorable—with fat

cheeks, a frank gaze, and mussed hair—and is prettily enveloped

in drapery with deeply carved folds. She does not have her elder

sister's almond-shaped eyes, with their unforgettably sharp gaze,

but has her own look and personality. Aside from this bust and

the draped version of Sabine at age four, Houdon showed the

girls undraped, with a rounded truncation like that of the portrait

of their mother. A marble bust of Anne-Ange (known to this

author only from a photograph) (fig. 3) seems to date from

the same period as this portrait of Claudine: both reveal a tenderness in the modeling of the marble, which has been worked

till it seems supple and suggests the translucency of flesh;

both exemplify the sculptor's sensitivity to the subtlest expressions; and, above all, both attest to Houdon's love of life and

of his children, which makes this gallery of portraits extraordinarily affecting.

GUILHE M SCHERF

PROVENANC E

Collection of Nils Erik Bergvall, Karlskrona, Sweden (in his family since

1850); Duveen Brothers, New York; acquired by the museum in 1964.

E X H IBITION S

Worcester 1964,109-114, ill.

REFERENCE S

H. Harvard Arnason, "Claudine Houdon by Jean-Antoine Houdon,"

Worcester Art Museum: News Bulletin and Calendar 30, no. 2 (Nov. 1964),

1-3, ill.; Arnason 1975, 85, fig. 176, pi. 115.

I39
Back view of cat. 18

RELATE D WORK S

Numerous copies. The list below is not exhaustive, and some busts, especially since the dispersion of works belonging to the artist's descendants,

are impossible to identify with certainty (new restorations, different bases,

and so on).

Plasters

Musee Carnavalet, Paris (inv. S 3329); painted terracotta color; H. 40 cm,

W. 27 cm, D. 17 cm; cachet de 1'atelier; direct provenance from the sitter;

bequest of Aurore Lauth-Sand, great-granddaughter of Claudine, 1923. See

Paris 1928, under no. 40; Reau 1964,1:419, 2:50, under no. 233; cover ill.

for Montagu 1966.

From Raoul Perrin, grandson of Claudine; H. 39 cm; sale, Jacques

Doucet collection, 6 June 1912, no. 114, ill.; acquired by Marius Paulme;

Edouard Noetzlin collection. See Paris 1928, 47, no. 40, ill.

Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh; cachet de 1'atelier, possibly from Pierre

Decourcelle collection sale, 1911, no. 192; purchased by Helen Frick through

the art market.

Plasters dispersed in Paris 16 Dec. 1922, no. 230; 30 Mar. 1925, no. 34,

ill. (R. Boulland collection); and 27 Dec. 1927, no. 6. Plaster from the Edmond

Courty collection illustrated in Reau 1964, pi. CXXIX, no. 2336. Another

from the Florence J. Gould collection appears in Black 1994, fig. 28.

Bronze

Bronzes of uncertain date are mentioned (for example, as leaving France on

16 Nov. 1988) in the Louvre's sculpture department files.

Terracottas

From Raoul Perrin, grandson of the sitter; H. (with base) 36.5 cm; his sale,

Hotel Drouot, Paris, 18 May 1914, no. i, ill. See Giacometti 1929, 2:82.

Probably in a private collection, Newport, RI; from Sabine Houdon

Pineu-Duval; H. (with base) 35.5 cm; marble base; to her daughter Mme

Perron; then her son Jean Perron; acquired by Duveen Brothers, which

produced a booklet in London (n.d.): "A terra-cotta bust by Jean-Antoine

Houdon 1741-1828. Portrait of his third daughter Antoinette Claude

Houdon. From the collection of Monsieur A. Perrou [sic] of Le Mans, France";

Mrs. W. Douglas, New York. See Giacometti 1929, 2:81-82.

Formerly Rene Gimpel collection; see Giacometti 1929,1:62, ill, 2:82.

Formerly M. de Saint-Pierre collection (Versailles 1928, no. 20, ill.; Paris

1928, no. 39); inscribed on back: "Houdon"; sale, Espace Tajan, Paris, 15 Dec.

1997, no. 133, ill.; sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 2 Mar. 1998, no. 330, ill.

Boilly paintings

Is the bust of Claudine among the plasters depicted in Boilly's two paintings of Houdon in His Studio (cat. 66), on the right-hand shelf between

the portraits of Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Gerbier and Sophie Arnould? The

drapery is similar, but the subject appears older and the expression in the

eyes seems different.

Signature on cat. 18

1. Reau 1950,180. According to BMV, F 945(2), no. 17;

and Frick 1947, 208, Sabine was baptized 6 Mar. 1787.

2. BMV, F 945(4), nos. 42-45.

3. BMV, F 945(2), no. 15; and Frick 1947, 209.

4. BMV, F 945(1), no. 20.

5. Vitry 1906, 346. Vitry 1912,106 n. i, suggests

that some objects belonging to Anne-Ange went to

a collateral branch (the comte Fournier-Sarloveze).

6. Claudine was baptized 4 Nov. 1790 at Saint-Philippe

du Roule; see BMV, F 945(2), no. 16.

7. BMV, F 945(4), no. 42; and Frick 1947, 211.

8. Olga Raggio, "New Galleries for French and Italian

Sculpture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," GBA

(Dec. 1991), 245, fig. 33. For the original plaster see

Louvre cat. 1998,427, ill.

9. Scherf 1997.

10. Collection Edouard Duval (son of Sabine) in 1869

(AMN, $5, 28 July 1869); collection Tabourier (sale

20 June 1898, no. 246, ill.) and Reff(Emile Molinier

and Frantz Marcou, Exposition retrospective, de /'art

Jran$ais des engines a 1800 [Paris, 1900], ill.; Paris 1928,

43, under no. 34; Artemis, London, 6 June-7 July 1978,

no. 9, ill.). Girardot already owned one of Houdon's

busts of a child, namely, Anne Audeoud (Salon cat.

1781, no. 255; sale, Sotheby's, Monaco, 22 June 1987,

no. 1212, ill.).

11. For the original plaster see Louvre cat. 1998, 425,

ill., which came from Claudine.

12 . Probably the original plaster, which is now at

the Louvre (sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 9 Dec. 2002,

no. 68, ill.).

13. See Paris 1928, nos. 36 and 37; and Arnason 1975,

102-103,12°

 n

-

 25:

' fig8-

 X79 and 180; but cf. Reau

1964, 2:51, no. 241.

14. In this respect, he may have been following LouisClaude Vasse (see Black 1994).

15. Vitry 1906, 348. Sale, 8 Oct. 1795, under "figures

et bustes en marbre," no. 74: "Une tete d'enfant, coiffe

en cheveux et pose sur piedouche en marbre bleu

turquin. Haut. totale 13 pouces [33 cm]"; and under

"Terre cuite," no. 102: "Deux tetes d'enfants, elles sont

coiffees en cheveux posees sur piedouche en marbre

bleu turquin. Haut. 13 pouces."

16. Giacometti 1929, 2:299 n. 2, noted that a terracotta

bust of a child by Houdon was entrusted by the Perrin

family to a sculptor who wanted to make a copy; he

certainly also made some casts.

140
+ Denis Diderot (1713-1784)

1771

Terracotta on wood base

H. 46 cm (with base: 52 cm), W. 26.9 cm, D. 22.2 cm

Fragments of cachet de l'atelier on back

Musée du Louvre, Paris, département des sculptures, Gift of the heirs to F. H. Walferdin, 1880 (inv. RF 348)

Dated 1775

White marble on white marble base

H. 42 cm (with base: 56 cm), W. 27 cm, D. 22 cm

Inscribed on back: A M. Robineau de Bougon. Houdon sculpsit 1775

Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon (inv. MV 855)

1780

Bronze on round gray marble socle with square white marble base

H. 57 cm (with base: 81 cm), W. 28.3 cm, D. 27 cm

Inscribed: DENIS DIDEROT, À SES CONCITOYENS • SCULPTÉ PAR HOUDON L'AN 1780.

Musée d'art et d'histoire de Langres (inv. 984-2 -i)

17805

Plaster, on separate plaster base, both painted terracotta color

H. 47.4 cm (with base: 58.3 cm), W. 29 cm

Cachet de l'atelier on back,

Inscribed on front of base: DIDEROT

Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (inv. NM Sk 1316)

19-22

The bust of Diderot that Houdon exhibited at the Salon of 1771

is generally identified as the Louvre terracotta (cat. 19). Although

the work was apparently commissioned by Prince Dmitrii Alekseevich Golitsyn following his service as Russian minister to

the French court in 1762-1767 (see Provenance), it has been

suggested that Catherine II was the intended recipient. Yet it

is doubtful she had any interest in Houdon in 1771, when he

was as yet little known; and since Golitsyn had left France for

The Hague in May 1768, Diderot himself served as Catherine's

intermediary for purchasing works of art. In addition, the Russian empress had already commissioned a marble bust of Diderot

from Marie-Anne Collot in 1769, completed in 1772 (fig. i). It

would seem then that Golitsyn, away from Paris, wanted a souvenir of his friendship with the French philosopher. Houdon,

whose submissions to the Salon of 1769 had attracted positive

reviews, may have been recommended to Golitsyn either by

Frédéric-Melchior Grimm or by Diderot himself4.

It is not known when Diderot first met Houdon. He did

not know him at the time he reviewed the Salon of 1769, but

he mentioned him in a letter to Etienne-Maurice Falconet on

20 March 1771, citing him as one of the art masters, alongside

Jean-Baptiste II Lemoyne and Laurent Guiard (Diderot's protégé). Houdon's interest in Collot was profound. She had done

a bust of Diderot in 1766, for which he had posed, and the sitter liked the result. When Catherine II commissioned Collot to

sculpt the writer's portrait in marble, he sent a mask of his face

to Russia, done by Lemoyne (Collot's affectionate teacher), and

a plaster cast of the 1766 terracotta belonging to Grimm.

Diderot's reaction to Houdon's portrait when he saw it at the

Salon of 1771 was laconic; he wrote simply "a very good like9

ness." He was probably not surprised to see the bust commissioned by Golitsyn, one of his close friends. It is impossible to

verify if Houdon was influenced by Collot's work, because no

bust of 1766 has survived, thus only her marble of 1772 (fig. i)

141
cat.19
cat.20
CAT. 21
cat.22
i. Marie-Anne Collot, Diderot, 1772, marble, The State Hermitage Museum,

St. Petersburg.

2. Cicero, second-century copy after a portrait made at the end of

the Republic, marble, Chiaramonti Museum, The Vatican.

provides a basis for comparison. A plaster of the latter may have

appeared in the shipment of 1771 from St. Petersburg. The

difference between Collot's portrait and Houdoris is striking:

Collot sculpted the smiling face of a familiar man with drooping eyelids, whereas Houdon gave the philosopher the look of

a virile thinker with an incisive gaze. Although the formula is

similar—head with short hair on a nude upper torso—the spirit

is completely different.

The critics at the Salon of 1771 were full of praise for

Houdon's bust. In the words of one, "Although the large features of that head, fit for a medal, lend themselves to the chisel,

and the artist has all the freedom to linger on that physiognomy,

precisely articulated in its different parts, one must praise the

fire, the expression M. Houdon was able to put into his work,

and the enthusiasm of the passionate author of Les Bijoux indiscrets seems to have won over the artist, whose other works do

not display such a warm and ardent character"; another wrote,

"I single out the bald head of the editor of the Encyclopedic. The

flame of genius brought that bust to life; there is a fire, an expression, that gives it a striking resemblance; I don't want to say

it out loud, but our colleagues the painters have done nothing

to equal us"; finally, according to Daudet de Jossan, "the bust of

Diderot, whom the flame of genius seems to animate, struck all

beholders with admiration and astonishment."12

Houdon exhibited another bust of Diderot at the Salon of

1773. Missing from the catalogue, it was noted in an admiring

review: "The author of the bust of M. Diderot, in reproducing

him for us a second time, may wish to compensate us for the

absence of that scholar [Diderot was in Russia] and not allow

us to cool toward him." This may be the marble, dated 1773,

that the wealthy Francophile Count Aleksandr Sergeevich

Stroganov of St. Petersburg acquired during one of his stays in

France (see Related Works). Houdon indicated on his autograph

list of about 1784 his translation of Diderot's features into

marble. He produced at least two other marbles dated 1775

(with his studio, of course): the one at the Louvre was kept in

the sitter's family; and the one at Versailles (cat. 20) belonged

to a M. Robineau de Bougon, about whom almost nothing

is known. By this time Houdon's portrait of Diderot had

gained great renown, and plasters of it had entered, notably,

the collections of King Gustav III of Sweden (cat. 22), Prince

Henry of Prussia, and Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha.

In 1780 Houdon cast a copy of his bust of Diderot in bronze

(carefully noted on his autograph list of 1784), which the philosopher sent to his hometown of Langres at the request of the

146
ENLIGHTENMEN T FIGURE S

3. Louis-Michel Van

Loo, Diderot, 1767,

oil on canvas, Musee

du Louvre, Paris.

municipal council (cat. 21). Finally, at the Salon of 1789, the

sculptor displayed a "marble head of small proportions" representing Diderot (no. 249), next to those of Jean-Jacques

Rousseau and the comte de Buffon.

Diderot is the only great intellectual of the Enlightenment

in Houdon's portrait gallery to have been depicted according to

a single typology (bare head, nude upper torso). That formula,

established in 1771, did not change. In this respect, Diderot can

be distinguished from Voltaire, Rousseau, d'Alembert, Buffon,

and Benjamin Franklin. Giacometti and Reau suggested that

Houdon used a new model for the Langres bust, showing an

older Diderot. But Arnason maintained that Houdon used the

same model for all of the busts, observing more accurately that

Diderot's appearance in 1780 would have been closer to that

captured by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle in 1777. This was obviously

not Houdon's intent. Rather, it was to show at Langres, and

to everyone, an image of the philosopher that had received the

sitter's approval and would correspond fully to his tastes.

Diderot liked Houdon's bust of 1771. The typology of the

orator from classical times, suggesting a modern Cicero

(fig. 2), suited him, and the beautiful rounded truncation

emphasized the face. He strongly disliked Louis-Michel Van

Loo's painting of him, displayed at the Salon of 1767 (fig. 3): "I

like Michel; but I like the truth better... .what will my grandchildren say, when they come to compare my sad writings with

this cute, laughing, effeminate old flirt? My children, I tell you

it is not I." Conversely, the writer found himself in step with

the ideas of Mme Therbouche, who painted a portrait of

him around the same time (fig. 4): "When the head was done,

there was the matter of the neck, and the top of my clothing hid

it, which somewhat displeased the artist. To put an end to that

vexation, I went behind a curtain, undressed, and appeared

before her as an academic model—I was nude, completely

nude. She painted me and we chatted with a simplicity and

innocence worthy of the earliest centuries.18"

Houdon understood what Diderot wanted and produced a

portrait in keeping with his ideal. Did the two men speak with

one another about the conception of the bust? Did the writer

pose for the sculptor? It is difficult to believe that he did not, as

the face seems very real even today. The artist created a likeness

that reflected not a fleeting moment but an enduring quality,

corresponding with the philosopher's own criteria: "A portrait

may look sad, somber, melancholic, serene, because these states

are permanent; but a laughing portrait is without nobility,

without character, often even without truth, and as a result is

19

foolishness." Likewise, in its lack of adornment, the bust

follows the Encyclopedias recommendations that a portrait show

"respect for individuality, naturalness, truthfulness; distrust for

accessories... attributes... poses contrary to the character of the

model." Finally, Houdon attempted to convey the liveliness of

the writer's eyes and to suggest, by means of the parted lips,

the brilliance of his conversation. Diderot knew the difficulty:

"Portraits are so difficult that Pigalle told me he had never done

4. Bertonnier, Diderot,

engraving after Mme

Therbouche's painting

0/1767, BNEst.

147
Back views of cats. 19 and 20 Back views of cats. 21 and 22

one without being tempted to give up on it. In fact, life, character, and physiognomy dwell on the face."

With his portrait of Diderot, Houdon perfected what would

be key to his formidable success: the transcription of the gaze.

His technique, which he did not invent but which he refined

throughout his career, was to carve a depression for the iris and

define the pupil with a hollow at the bottom, leaving a bit of the

material in relief along the edge of the iris to allow for the play

of shadow and light and to simulate the lifelike quality of the

eyes. In contrast to the extreme sensitivity of the modeling of

the eyes and the flesh, Houdon treats the hair as a dense mass,

with individual strands incised on the temples. On the reverse,

on the long upper edge of the truncation, he carved fine striations

like those found on the backs of finished marbles. In the masterful bust of 1771, which is Houdon's earliest known portrait23,

the sculptor captured the ideal image of Diderot, with his profile

worthy of a medal, balanced between the thinker's timeless

state—equaling the Ancients —and the vivacity of the curious

mind open to its time. "Is not Houdon.. .the sculptor Diderot

demands, and of whom he dreams?24"

GUILHE M SCHERF

PROVENANC E

4- Louvre terracotta 4

Commissioned by Prince Dmitrii Alekseevich Golitsyn, Russian ambassador to France, according to a letter from Diderot to his sister dated 23 Mar.

1770: "Le prince de Gallitzin fait faire mon buste" (Diderot [éd. 1955-1970],

10:40-41); most likely identical with the bust displayed at the Salon of 1771,

no. 281 (no record of medium); retained by the sculptor until his death

(?); posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio, Paris, 15-17 Dec. 1828,

no. 17 (cachet de l'atelier probably added at this time); collection of FrançoisHippolyte Walferdin (1795-1880), physicist and politician, a native of

Langres; donated in his name by his heirs, 1880.

4 Versailles marble 4

Collection of Robineau de Bougon, member of the House of Deputies;

donated by Robineau to King Louis Philippe for the Musée de Versailles and

accepted 22 Nov. 1838 (AMN, S8); came to the museum in 1843.

4 Langres bronze 4

On 29 Aug. 1780 the municipal council of Langres, Diderot's native city,

asked the philosopher for permission to have his portrait done to adorn one

of the rooms in city hall (Tourneux 1913,186-187). As Diderot's daughter

recalled: "In 1780...the mayor and four municipal magistrates wrote my

father to ask him for a portrait they would pay for, requiring only that he

give the artist the time needed. My father replied to his compatriots as he

ought to have done; he sent them the bronze bust M. Houdon had executed

of him. It was placed in a room at city hall, on a small cabinet containing the

Encyclopédie and his books. The day it was set in place, they held a corporate

dinner, placed the bust atop a table, and drank to its health. These details,

given my father by the mayor, brought him very sweet moments. The city

sent some trifle or another to M. Houdon, who, for his part, responded by

sending the gentlemen plasters of the bronze bust they had honored"

148
ENLIGHTENMEN T FIGURE S

("Memoires pour servir a 1'histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de Diderot, par

Madame de Vandeul, sa fille," Memoires, correspondance et ouvrages inedits

de Diderot.,,[Paris, 1830], 1:60). Diderot's and Houdon's gestures and the

appreciation of the municipal council of Langres are documented in an

exchange of letters (Diderot [ed. 1955-1970], 15:187-188, 228-231,

233-236). The bust is mentioned in Houdon's autograph list of works

(ca. 1784) under the year 1781: "Un buste en bronze de Mr Diderot, depose

dans 1'hotel de ville de Langre, sa patrie."

4- Stockholm plaster 4-

Most likely acquired by the comte de Creutz, Swedish ambassador to Paris,

in 1783 when Houdon executed the bust of Gustav III. Sent to the king and

installed in his bedroom at the former Haga summerhouse (posthumous

inventory of Gustav III, 1792, National Archives, Stockhom, K 50). Became

part of the Nationalmuseum collection in 1928.

EXHIBITION S

4- Louvre terracotta 4-

Possibly Paris, Salon cat. 1771, no. 281; Paris 1865, no. 3662; Paris 1878, no.

536; Diderot [exh. cat., Bibliotheque Nationale] (Paris, 1963-1964), no. 335;

Paris 1984-1985, 455-456, no. 132, ill.; Frankfurt 1999-2000,134-136,

no. 79, ill.

4- Versailles marble 4-

Versailles 1928, no. 8.

4- Langres bronze 4-

Versailles 1928, no. 9, ill.; Paris 1928, no. 15.

4- Stockholm plaster 4-

Paris 1928, no. 16; Catherine the Great e[ Gustav III [exh. cat., Nationalmuseum] (Stockholm 1998-1999), no. 242, ill.; Face to Face: Portraits from

Five Centuries [exh. cat., Nationalmuseum] (Stockholm, 2001), no. 76, ill.

REFERENCE S

4- Louvre terracotta 4-

Delerot and Legrelle 1857, 34, 41-43; J. Assezat and Maurice Tourneux,

"Iconographie," CEuvres completes de Diderot (Paris, 1877), 20:111; Maurice

Tourneux, "Hommages rendus a Diderot par ses compatriotes (1780-1781),"

BSHAF (1913), 190; Vitry 19283, 12; Giacometti 1929, 2:37; Reau 1964,

1:353-354, 2:30, no. 115, pi. LIV; Francis Watson, "Diderot and Houdon: A

Little-Known Bust," in The Artist and the Writer in France: Essays in Honour

of Jean Seznec (Oxford, 1974), 16-17; Arnason 1975, 21-22, pi. i2a; Hecht

1994, 30, ill; Jeannette Geffriaud Rosso, Diderot et le portrait (Pise, 1998),

54-57, ill.; Louvre cat. 1998, 422, ill.; Sauerlander 2002,19, figs. 4-5.

4- Versailles marble 4-

Montaiglon and Duplessis 1855,

 l&9'> Delerot and Legrelle 1857,180; Assezat

and Tourneux 1877, III; Soulie 1880, no. 855; Tourneux 1913,190-191; Vitry

19283, 12; Giacometti 1929, 2:38; Reau 1964, 1:353, 2:30, no. 115, pi. 55;

Arnason 1975, 23; Versailles cat. 1993, 124, no. 493, ill.; Geffriaud Rosso

1998, 59-61, ill.

4- Langres bronze 4-

Montaiglon and Duplessis 1855,169-170; Delerot and Legrelle 1857, 44,

180; Vitry 1907^ 207, no. 97; Tourneux 1913; Vitry 19283,12; Vitry i928b,

ill. 60; Giacometti 1929, 2:39, ill.; Reau 1964,1:78-79, 353, 2:30, no. 115;

Arnason 1975, 23, pi. i2b; Geffriaud Rosso 1998, 57-59.

4- Stockholm plaster 4-

Giacometti 1929, 2:39; Bengt Dahlback, "Mycket likt. Nagra data, och

reflektioner om fyra portrattskulpturer 3v Houdon," Arsbokf. svenka Stat,

Konstsaml Stockholm (Stockholm, 1964), 12:99-104, ill.; Reau 1964, 2:30,

no. 115; Nationalmuseum Stockholm. Illustrated Catalogue—Swedish and

European Sculpture (Stockholm, 1999), 301, ill.

RELATE D WORK S

Marbles

The Metropolitsn Museum of Art, New York (inv. 1974.291); H. 54 cm;

inscribed on bsck: "Mr Diderot, fait en 1773 par houdon"; on front of

marble counterbsse: "11 eut de grands Amis et, quelques bas jaloux / le Soleil

plait a 1'aigle, et blesse les hiboux"; text attributed to Abbe Le Monnier, reproduced below an engraving by Chenu after Garand's portrait of Diderot (see

Diderot [ed. 19953], 83 n. 69 [Salon de 1767]). Stroganov collection (Louis

Reau, "L'Art francais du XVIHe siecle dans la collection Stroganov," BSHAF

[1931], 65); Stroganov sale, Berlin, 12-13 May 1931, no. 225, ill. (see Diderot

to Fslconet, 30 May 1773: "I am very close to M. and Mme de StrogonofP;

in Diderot [ed. 1955-1970], 12:229); giyen to the Metropolitan by Charles

Wrightsman in 1974. Hecht 1994 establishes with certainty that the bust

in the Metropolitan's collection and that said to be housed at The State

Hermitage Museum are actually the same work; errors especially in Reau

1964,1:353,

 2:3°; London 1972, no. 381, ill.; Watson 1974; Arnason 1975,

21-22; and New York 1981, no. i.

Musee du Louvre, Paris (inv. RF 1520), on marble base; H. 43 cm (with

base: 56 cm), W. 27 cm, D. 21.8 cm; inscribed on back: "Houdon Sculcit

[sic] 1775"; bequeathed by Charles-Denis (known as Albert) Caroillon de

Vandeul (1837-1911), descendant of the sitter, along with the portrait painted

by Louis-Michel Van Loo (see text above and Louvre cat. 1998,427, ill.).

Plasters

Houdon sent five plasters to the municipality of Langres after the bronze

was installed at city hall on 30 Apr. 1780. As Diderot wrote to his daughter,

Mme de Vandeul, 28 July 1781: "I was afraid that plaster casts had been

made from my bust, and that it might at least have lost its color. Houdon was

very generous toward our municipal officers; he sent them, or is about to

send them, five terracottas. They may not be able to appreciate such a present" (Diderot [ed. 1955 -1970], 15:254). Mme de Vandeul corrected the word

"terracottas" to "plasters." A plaster painted terracotta color; H. 52 cm;

with cachet de I'atelier on back, is at the Musee d'art et d'histoire, Langres,

listed in catalogues since 1873;

 see

 Montagu 1966, pi. 3.

Schlossmuseum Gotha (inv. P 36); H. 56.7 cm, W. 38.5 cm, D. 23.3 cm;

acquired directly from Houdon by Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha, who had

met Diderot through Frederic-Melchior Grimm during a stay in Paris in

1768 as crown prince; see Schuttwolf 1995,140-141, ill.

Formerly Royal Castle, Berlin (see Seidel 1900, no. 191; Paris 1928, 33,

under no. 15); bronzed plaster; H. 56 cm; cachet de I'atelieron back; acquired

directly from Houdon by Henry of Prussia; see Giacometti 1929, 2:39; and

Rheinsberg 2002, 442-443.

Private collection; bronzed plaster with cachet de I'atelier, offered to Francois

Tronchin by Diderot's daughter, Mme de Vandeul; see Reau 1964, 2:30, no.

115; and De Geneve a I'Ermitage. Les Collections de Frangois Tronchin [exh. cat.,

Musee Rath] (Geneva, 1974), no. 17: "Geneve, Andre Givaudan collection."

149
Signature on cat. 20

Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich (inv. 65/3); bronzed plaster on

marble base; H. 46.2 cm; inscribed "Houdon 1780"; fragments of cachet de

I'atelieron back; acquired by the museum in 1965; see Bayerisches Nationalmuseum. Bildjuhrer 2. Kostbarkeiten (Munich, 1975), 78-79, no. 57, ill.

Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven (inv. 1977.72); painted terracotta color; H. 57.2 cm, W. 27.9 cm, D. 24.5 cm; cachet de I'atelier on back;

gift to the museum from Mrs. Charles Seymour Jr., 1977. See Worcester

1964,26-28; ill.; and Handbook of the Collections: Yale University Art Gallery

(New Haven, 1992), 184, ill.

Numerous plasters date from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Castings were made of the Versailles marble in 1838 by Jacquet for the

historical galleries of the chateau de Versailles (Versailles cat. 1993,124, no.

494). The Louvre's plaster cast workshop made copies beginning in 1883;

distributed since 1928 through the Musee de sculpture comparee at Le Trocadero (Rionnet 1996, 266, no. 1122; Enlart and Roussel 1910,221, G146).

One of these recent plasters (painted terracotta color) was in the bedroom

of writer Paul Leautaud (today in the Musee Carnavalet, Paris).

Bronze

Tourneux 1913,184 (ill. p. 191), mentions a bronze pointed out by Anatole

France in an antique dealer's shop before it was acquired by an "American

art lover" (unlocated).

Terracotta

Assezat and Tourneux 1877, in, notes that Walferdin, prior owner of the

terracotta now at the Louvre, "had electroplated and plaster reductions made"

from the bust. Giacometti 1929, 2:39, reports: "my teacher Gustave Deloye

made casts after the terracotta Diderot in the Louvre, at the request of Walferdin; reworked with a tool, painstakingly respecting all the values of the model,

they constitute remarkable casts, which, over time, have taken on a patina

that might easily allow them to be confused with old versions."

Reductions

Efforts have been made to identify the "lete en marbre de petite proportion"

exhibited at the Salon of 1789 (no. 249) as a reduction of the bust of Diderot,

which may be depicted on the upper shelf at the back of the artist's studio

as painted by Boilly in 1804 (cat. 66), between busts of d'Alembert and John

Paul Jones.

Musee d'art et d'histoire, Langres (inv. 905.1.4); marble; H. 33 cm, W.

13 cm; inscribed on back: "Houdon F1789"; gift of A. de Vandeul, 1905; see

Roland May, Les Collections des musees de Langres—Diderot (Langres, 1986).

Formerly J. Strauss collection; then Henri Piazza collection; plaster; H.

28.5 cm; inscribed "Houdon 1780" (Paris 1928, no. 17; Giacometti 1929,

1:162, ill.); sale, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 9-10 June 1935, no. 232.

Formerly at the Besancon museum as a gift of Senator Oudet (Castan,

Musee de Besancon. Inventaire des richesses d'art de la France [1889], 160); bronze;

H. 28 cm; inscribed on lower edge of truncation: "D'apres le buste d'Houdon

tire du cabinet de M. Walderdin"; listed in Paris 1928 under no. 17 and by

Giacometti 1929, 2:38; destroyed in the Besancon theater fire of 1958.

Sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 6 Mar. 1972, no. 119; H. 28.5 cm with wood

base; ill. on cover: "Petit buste en reduction... Terre cuite. Signe." This

questionable little bust displays a significant variation in its particularly

thick eyebrows.

Boilly paintings

Bust of Diderot depicted in Boilly's two paintings of Houdon in His Studio

(cat. 66), on the shelf to the right, next to the bust of Benjamin Franklin.

Dedication on cat. 20

150
ENLIGHTENMEN T FIGURE S

1. Watson 1974,16. Golitsyn sometimes acted as representative for the empress.

2. Hecht 1994, 32.

3. Charles-Nicolas Cochin influenced Elie Fréron in his

criticism for L'Année littéraire, where Houdon's works

are cited approvingly. Hecht 1994, 32, notes Golitsyn's

classical taste, which supposedly led him to appreciate

Houdon's submissions.

4. The friendship between Dmitrii Golitsyn and

Houdon was consolidated in 1774, with the prince's

commissioning of two funerary monuments from the

artist; see cat. 57 and Dulac 1997.

5. "I received the last plasters [by Collot] you sent me

[from St. Petersburg], I thank you both [Falconet and

Collot] and transmit to you not my praise, which you

would little value, but that of the art masters who have

taken them away from me. Ordinarily one does not

request, one does not take away, one does not hang in

one's studio things one does not respect. Mile Collot is

hanging in the homes of Le Moine, Guiart, Houdon,

etc." (Diderot [ed. 1955-1970], 10:248).

6. "So, Falconet, you speak of Mile Collot as if I didn't

know her. Did I not submit to her modeling tool and

hold her gaze for a week or two?" Two terracotta busts

of Diderot were fired in 1766 at Sèvres, one of them

for Grimm (Diderot to Falconet, 6 Sept. 1768 and

beginning of Nov. 1766; see Diderot [ed. 1955-1970],

8:135 and 6:348).

7. "One of the good portraits of me is the bust by Mile

Collot, especially the last, which belongs to my friend

M. Grimm. It is good. It is very good. It has replaced

another in his home that her master M. Falconnet had

done and which was not good. When Falconnet saw

his student's bust, he picked up a hammer and shattered his own in front of her. That is honest and courageous. The bust, falling to pieces under the artist's

blows, revealed two beautiful ears that had been preserved in their entirety under a shameful wig that

Mme Geoffrin had dressed me up in after the fact. M.

Grimm was never able to forgive Mme Geoffrin for

that wig" (Diderot [ed. 19953], 84 [Salon de 1767]).

8. Diderot to Falconet, 6 Aug. 1769; see Diderot (ed.

I

955~I97°)' 9:97- F°r Diderot's posing for Lemoyne,

see Diderot (ed. 1995^, 405 (Pensées détachées sur la

peinture).

9. Diderot (ed. i995b), 242 (Salon de 1771).

10. Marie-Louise Becker, "Marie-Anne Collot. L'Art de

la terre cuite au féminin," L'Estampille— L'Objet d'art,

no. 325 (June 1998), 74, fig. 3, despite the absence

of documents, identifies a terracotta bust of Diderot

(Musée national de céramique, Sèvres; H. 35 cm

with base) as "the scale model of the 1766 bust for

the manufacture of the biscuit porcelain," following

the hypothesis of Assézat and Tourneux 1877,109-110.

Stylistically, however, the work is quite unlike the 1772

marble, and the treatment of the eyes too closely

follows Houdon's to accept that attribution and date

without reservation. The plaster at the Manufacture

de Sèvres is dated 1780-1789 in Bourgeois and

Lechevallier-Chevignard 1914, no. 192, pi. 40.

u. See above note 5.

12. Mémoires secrets. Lettre sur le Salon de 1771 (see Fort

1999, 97); Journal encyclopédique (Deloynes XLIX,

no. 1320; MacWilliam 1991, 213); and Daudet de Jossan,

Lettre de M. Raphaël le Jeune (Deloynes IX, no. 141;

MacWilliam 1991, 214).

13. Fort 1999,123. The editor of Mémoires secrets

describes a portrait of Diderot without a sculptor's

name, but alongside three other busts by Houdon

(Lalande, Dauvergne, and Capperonnier).

14. "Buste de Mr Diderot, et a été exécuté en marbre"

(Vitry i907b, 198, no. n, no date given).

15. The dedication to Robineau was presumably

inscribed on the Versailles marble "out of gratitude for

the cost of execution borne by him" (Tourneux 1913,

190-191); see also Assézat and Tourneux 1877, in.

16. Louvre cat. 1998, ill. p. 520.

17. Diderot (ed. 19953) ,81-82 (Salon de 1767).

18. Diderot (ed. 19953), 375 (Salon de 1767).

19. Diderot (ed. 1984), 68 (Essais sur la peinture).

20. From the article "Portrait" in the Encyclopédie.

See also Edouard Pommier, Théories du portrait. De la

renaissance aux lumières (Paris, 1998), 422-423;

and Diderot (ed. i995b), 445 (Pensées détachées sur la

peinture): "When the clothing of a people is shabby,

art ought to leave aside the costume. What does statuary have to do with your jackets, your trousers, your

rows of buttons?"

21. Diderot (ed. i995b), 448 (Pensées détachées sur la

peinture).

22. A comparable technique can be found especially

in Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Jean-Baptiste Defernex.

For Defernex' bust of Mme Favart (1757, terracotta;

see Louvre cat. 1998, 328, ill.), the artist carved a

depression for the iris but without defining the pupil

as Houdon did.

23. "His Diderot of 1771 was almost his initial stroke

and his masterstroke all at once" (Vitry i928c, 136).

24. Délerot and Legrelle 1857,35.

!5I

* François-Marie Arouet, called Voltaire (1694-1778)

Dated 1778

White marble with dark gray inclusions and veining on gray marble base

H. 36.8 cm (with base: 48.2 cm), W. 21.4 cm

Inscribed on back and proper right edge of truncation: LE PREMIER FAIT PAR HOUDON. 1778

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Angers (inv. MBA 54 [Ji88i]S)

Consistent with the inscription "le premier fait par Houdon,"

this distinguished marble bust of Voltaire "tête nue" is considered to be Houdon's first portrait of his famous sitter. The subtlety and refinement of the carving convey the physical frailty of

the old man, while the sharply cut eyes, with their pupils looking slightly to the side, attest to his undiminished intellectual

clarity and moral authority. An enigmatic smile graces the wide

toothless mouth and deepens the many wrinkles on the sunken

cheeks, adding to the ironic expression of the face. The back of

the bust is finished in Houdon's characteristic manner, with

short striations cut horizontally from the edges of the truncation

and in a variety of directions in the center. Following the classical formula first used for the portrait of Diderot (cats. 19-22), the

bust presents Voltaire with an abbreviated, undraped torso and

"nude" head, save for the sparse remains of his natural hair. This

appears to have been the underlying model for Houdon's more

elaborate versions of Voltaire with wig and in contemporary

costume (cat. 24), with fuller hair and headband, or dressed in

antique garment (cat. 25).

On 10 February 1778, at the age of eighty-three and after

nearly thirty years in exile, the celebrated philosopher, author,

and man of letters returned to the French capital for a last time1.

Welcomed by Parisians with admiration and respect, Voltaire

immersed himself in intense activity, meeting people (among

them Denis Diderot, Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, and Benjamin

Franklin), visiting the Académie française and other institutions, and collecting honors of all kinds. The sage received

enthusiastic ovations from the audience when he attended

the presentation of his play Irène at the Comédie-Française on

30 March, and a laurel wreath was placed on his head upon his

entrance. After the performance came the legendary moment

when the actors spontaneously moved his bust to the stage and

crowned it with wreaths and flowers. Contrary to popular

belief, the sculpture used for this homage was not the Voltaire

"à la française" by Houdon (cat. 24)—the marble of which

entered the collection of the Comédie Française only in February 1779—but

 an

 earlier portrait, probably a plaster by JeanBaptiste II Lemoyne of 1748, which Jean-Jacques Caffieri had

donated to the theater in honor of Voltaire's arrival in Paris.

Around the same time Houdon, who, unlike many artists

of his day, had never traveled to Voltaire's retreat at Ferney, executed his first representation of the patriarch. Frédéric-Melchior

Grimm recalls that Voltaire agreed to sit for Houdon after seeing the sculptor's newly finished portrait of Molière and that it

153

23
took but two or three sessions, which the philosopher attended

cheerfully. These sittings must have taken place in the second

half of March, since until then Voltaire was seriously ill with a

hemorrhage he had suffered only fifteen days after his arrival

in Paris. The bust was completed by 16 April 1778 when Francois

Metra noted: "All of Paris goes to the studio of M. Houdon to

see a bust of M. Voltaire that is without question the closest likeness of all the portraits one has done of this patriarch." Of the

numerous portraits done of Voltaire in the previous sixty years,

this was the only one that completely satisfied the sitter and his

fans. Grimm marveled, "The eyes have so much life, an effect of

light so ingeniously handled, that M. Greuze himself, in seeing

the bust for the first time, initially thought that the eyes were

made of enamel or some other colored material." Consequently,

and even more following Voltaire's death on 30 May 1778,

Houdoris studio turned into a public attraction, drawing crowds

o

of people who wanted to see this much-acclaimed, lifelike image.

Although the bust of Voltaire "tete nue" was not officially

9

included in any of the Salons, it was the most often reproduced

version of Houdon's portraits of the philosopher and exists in

multiple examples in marble, bronze, plaster, and terracotta.

Its generically classical format—bare-chested and with a short,

curved truncation—is based on prototypes found in ancient

Roman portrait sculpture and coinage. Having introduced this

type with the bust of Diderot (cat. 19) in 1771, Houdon repeatedly used it later for representations of intellectuals and men

of ideas, such as for d'Alembert in 1779 (cat. 27), the comte de

Buffon in 1781 (cat. 28), or George Washington in 1785. Like

the Romans, he successfully combined a realistic depiction

of the idiosyncrasies of a particular face with the idealization

of the sitter's spirit and character, thus placing Voltaire on a par

with the ancient philosophers and writers.

ULRIK E D. MATHIES

Detail of signature

on cat. 23

Back view of cat. 23

PROVENANC E

From the collection of Toussaint Grille (1766-1850), Angers, and possibly

identical with a marble sold for 700 francs from the estate of Claude-Joseph

Clos, "ami particulier" of Voltaire, Paris, 18 Nov. 1812, 55, no. 57: "Le buste

en marbre de Voltaire, sur socle bleu turquin, et sous sa cage de verre, place

sur une gaine a jour plaquee en ebene, avec ornements de cuivre dore, et

gamie de glaces sur les trois faces. Ce buste est le premier fait par M. Houdon

en 1778," which reappeared in the Doyen sale, 6 Mar. 1826, no. 51; perhaps

Duchamp sale, Angers, 14 Feb. 1848,12, no. 4; bought for 90 francs after

Grille's death, Angers, 28 Apr. 1851, 6, no. 57, by Leclerc-Guillory (1789-

1858), who donated it to the city of Angers in 1854; deposited at the museum,

where it remains today.

EXHIBITION S

London 1972, 252-253, no. 390, pi. 57; Les Anneaux de la memoire. NantesEurope, Ajrique, Ameriques [exh. cat., Chateau des dues de Bretagne] (Nantes,

1992-1994), 124; Autour de David dAngers. Sculptures du XVIIIe siecle et du

debut du XIXe siecle dans les collections des musees dAngers [exh. cat., Musee des

Beaux-Arts] (Angers, 1994-1995), 42-43, no. 7, ill. p. 45; Paris 1994, 228,

no. 281; L'Edit de Nantes [exh. cat, Nantes and Pau] (Paris, 1998-1999), 105,

ill. p. 92; Frankfurt 1999-2000,136-137, no. 80, ill.

REFERENCE S

Jouin 1870, 91, no. 33; Jouin 1881,145, no. 34; Inventaire general des richesses

d'art de la France. Province. Monuments civils (Paris, 1885), 3:85; Henry Jouin,

Histoire et description des Musees d'Angers (Paris, 1885), 85; Gonse 1904,

43-44, ill.; Lami 1910-1911, 1:419; Giacometti 1918-1919, 2:350; Marcel

Valotaire, Le Musee dAngers (Paris, 1928), ill. p. 159, pi. 57; Giacometti 1929,

2:159-161; Morant 1950,7-8, pi. 3; Reau 1964,1:359,2:45>no-

 2O2F, pi- CV.

154
ENLIGHTENMEN T FIGURE S

RELATE D WORK S

Documented versions of Voltaire "tête nue"

Among the multitude of versions of Voltaire "tête nue," which appeared in

sales from the eighteenth century on, only the following shall be mentioned.

Bronze and marble

Two busts, one in bronze and one in marble, sold for 7,500 and 5,000 livres,

respectively, in Houdon's studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795,13-14, nos. 70,79; and a

marble "Buste de Voltaire" offered in posthumous sale of contents of

Houdon's studio, 15-17 Dec. 1828,15, no. 12 (as opposed to no. n: "Buste

habillé de Voltaire").

Plaster

A plaster version from the collection of Prince Henry of Prussia in the Schlossmuseum, Berlin, before World War II (H. 47 cm; cachet de l'atelier); mentioned in the inventory drawn after Henry's death in 1802 as one of four busts

installed on carved wall brackets in the "Thurm-Kabinette" (tower room) on

the second floor of Schloss Rheinsberg (GS T APK, I. HA Rep. 133, no. 190,

fol. i3v) and recorded there in a watercolor by W. Streckfuss ca. 1880;

transferred ca. 1895 to the museum in Berlin, where it remained until its

disappearance during the war. See Rheinsberg 1985, rev. éd., ill. pp. 69-70.

i. Augustin de SaintAubin, Bust of

Voltaire, ca. ijjS,

engraving, BNEst,

Hénin Collection.

Print

Engraving by Augustin de Saint-Aubin (see fig. i) shows the bust in a round

frame without its socle and in profile to the right against a dark background.

For a list of other engravings after the bust see Desnoiresterres 1879,117-118.

Principal extant versions of Voltaire "tête nue"

Plaster

Schlossmuseum Gotha (inv. P 72); H. 37.5 cm (with base: 48.3 cm), W. 22.2

cm; painted to resemble verdigris bronze (Schuttwolf 1995,150, no. 58, ill.);

probably identical with the bust mentioned in Klebe 1796,103, as located

in the palace of Prince August of Saxe-Gotha, brother of Ernst II, "am

àutëersten Ende der Vorstadt vor dem Siebeleber Thore": "Bins derselben

[Zimmer] enthàlt... mehrere Biisten, worunter sich die von Voltaire und

Rousseau, die Houdon in Paris verfertigt hat, auszeichnen."

Marbles

Musée Lambinet, Versailles (inv. 648); H. 36 cm (with base: 46.5 cm), W. 20.5

cm; inscribed on proper left edge of truncation: "Houdon. 1778"; reportedly

from scholar and politician Pierre-Claude-François Daunou (1761-1840);

bought by the city of Versailles from Docteur des Etangs in 1885. See

Gendre 1997,119, no. 189, ill.

Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. RF 3520); H. 35 cm (with base: 45.5 cm),

W. 19.5 cm; inscribed on back edge of truncation: "houdon f. 1778"; gift

of the comtesse Marie-Louise Biver in 1981. See Louvre cat. 1998,2:431, ill.

Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin (inv. Pi 95/15); H. 33.8 cm, W

20 cm; inscribed on back edge of truncation: "houdon f. 1778"; acquired in

1995 from Galerie Roller, Zurich. See Koschnick 1997, 255, ill.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 1972.61) (see fig. 2);

H. 36.6 cm (with base: 48 cm), W. 21 cm; inscribed on proper left edge

of truncation: "HOUDON. 1778"; from collection of Count Aleksandr

Sergeevich Stroganov in St. Petersburg; Stroganov sale, Berlin, 12-13 May

1931, no. 224, for 26,000 Marks; Thomas Fortune Ryan, New York; in

1972 acquired from Mrs. John Barry Ryan. See The Wrightsman Collection

(New York, 1973), 5:402, ill. p. 399.

2. Houdon, Bust of Voltaire, 1778, marble, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,

New York.

155
National Gallery of Art, Washington (inv. 1963.10.240); H. 36.6 cm

(with base: 44.8 cm), W. 21.2 cm; inscribed on proper right edge of truncation: "HOUDON. 1778"; cachet de l'atelier on back; reportedly from collection of Mme Denis, niece of Voltaire; Chester Dale Collection through

Parke-Bernet, 20 Nov. 1942,16, no. 25. See NGA cat. 1994, no, ill.

Bronzes

Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. RF 345); H. 35 cm (with base: 45 cm), W. 20.8

cm; inscribed on proper left edge of truncation: "HOUDON.1778"; discovered in 1871 by sculptor Adolphe-Victor Geoffroy-Dechaume "dans les

décombres d'un monument public" burned down during the Commune

in Paris and given by him to the state in 1876; Dépôt des marbres; at the

Louvre since 1880. See Louvre cat. 1998, 2:422, ill.

Pushkin Museum, Moscow (inv. 94); H. 34.5 cm (with base: 45.3 cm),

W. 20.6 cm; inscribed on proper left edge of truncation: "Houdon.i778";

acquired by Catherine II of Russia through Grimm for 2,000 livres, along

with a plaster of Houdon's bust of Voltaire "à la française," present location

unknown (see cat. 24, Related Works); received in St. Petersburg before i Oct.

1778; transferred from the Hermitage to the Pushkin in 1927. See SIRIO

1878, 95,104,107-108; 57.8101885,19, 25; see also Réau 1932, 21, 25,27,

29>30> 33-

Undesignated busts of Voltaire (all versions)

in sales during Houdon's lifetime

Marbles

Etablissement de l'Elysée, 13 Aug. 1798, no. 92 (with bust of Rousseau);

Boullongne, 8 May 1787, no. 240; Choiseul-Praslin, second sale, 9 May

1808, no. 48; Quentin Crawfurd, 20 Nov. 1820, no. 418; [Bertrand], 2 June

1824, no. 122; comtesse de Looz, 21 June 1825, no. 173.

Bronzes

In the context of his trip to the U.S. in 1785, Houdon put a bronze of Voltaire

up for sale in Philadelphia for 30 louis, which had not sold by Oct. 1800

(BMV, F 946, nos. 33-34, 38, 43, 49). [Leboeuf], 8 Apr. 1783, no. 120; Bergeret, 24 Apr. 1786, no. 495; [D'Espagnac et Tricot] par Lebrun, 22 May 1793,

no. 193 (with bust of Rousseau); Anonymous, 29 Nov. 1793, no. 41; Anonymous, 6 May 1795, no. 58; Le Bas-Courmont, 26 May 1795, no. 75 (see

[Leboeuf] sale); Porche-Vaubal, 30 Aug. 1797, no. no (antique drapery); Verdun-Bouquet, 26 Dec. 1798, no. 177 (antique drapery); Montaléau, 19 July

1802, no. 306; Clos, 18 Nov. 1812, no. 58 (with bust of Rousseau); Rocheux,

29 Jan. 1821, no. 66; Varroc et Lafontaine, 28 May 1821, no. 222.

Plasters

[Chevalier] par Lebrun, Paris, 28 Nov. 1785, no. 104 (with bust of Rousseau);

Etablissement de l'Elysée, 13 Aug. 1798, no. 83 (with busts of Molière

and Rousseau); Anonymous, 13 Dec. 1824 (with busts of Franklin and

Washington).

Terracottas

Dubois-Verrier et Claudion frère, 12 June 1783, no. 57 (with bust of Rousseau);

Haudry posthumous sale, Orléans [1800], 31, no. 49.

1. For contemporary sources see Damilaville 1878.

2. See Grimm's report in Corr. littéraire, 12:69-73.

3. E.g., Arnason 1975, 52,112 n. 121.

4. Cf. Guiffrey 1877, 276; Desnoiresterres 1879,

96-101; and Monval 1897, 40. The event and the

bust are documented in Jean-Michel Moreau le

Jeune's contemporary illustration, engraved by

Charles-Etienne Gaucher in 1782 (BNEst, Ob1).

5. May 1778, Coir, littéraire, 12:104. The sentimental

anecdote about another coronation with laurel at this

last sitting, told by the marquis de Villevieille almost

twenty-five years after Voltaire's death, lacks credibility;

see Willibald Sauerlànder, Jean-Antoine Houdon.

Voltaire. Eine Einfiihrung (Stuttgart, 1963), 11-12;

excerpts reprinted in Réau 1964,1:54.

6. Métra 1787-1790, 6:164; see also Bachaumont

1780-1789,11:198.

7. Corr. littéraire, 12:104.

8. Corr. littéraire, 12:104-105; 13 June 1778, Métra

1787-1790,6:291.

9. The terracotta busts of Voltaire "à la française" and

"à l'antique" were shown in the Salon of 1779, as nos.

19 and 23.

156
+ François-Marie Arouet, called Voltaire (1694-1778)

1780

White marble with gray veining on separate, modern, white marble base

H. 61.7 cm (with base: 80.3 cm), W. 53.8 cm

Inscribed on back: VOLTAIRE / HOUDON, F. ANNÉE / 1778.

Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften Archiv (inv. VZLOBO-OO29)

Houdon's bust of Voltaire "à la française," a masterpiece of great

beauty and subtlety, radiates the vitality of the French patriarch.

It presents the celebrated philosopher in the French costume of

his time, with a heavy, old-fashioned wig and the hint of his

proverbial sardonic smile. The cloaklike garment around his

shoulders and chest lends the sitter greater dignity and authority, one of the first instances in which Houdon turned to the

conservative portrait style made popular under Louis XV and

used for members of the court and the aristocracy. Voltaire is

not the ancient Seneca or Socrates here, but the gallant who

frequented the courts of Europe. Frederick II insisted on having this type of bust rather than the version "à l'antique": "Let's

not insult his country by giving him a costume that would make

him unrecognizable; Voltaire thought in Greek, but he was

French. Let's not disfigure our contemporaries by giving them

outfits of a nation that is now vilified and degraded under the

tyranny of the Turks, their conquerors."1

Voltaire's relations with the Prussian King Frederick the

Great were generally stormy, as both men had unyielding egos.2

Frederick, an admirer of Voltaire's ideas and an aspiring philosopher himself, initiated their correspondence in 1736. Fourteen

years later Voltaire accepted the king's long-standing invitation

to join his illustrious court in Potsdam as a well-paid companion and language teacher. At first delighted by the hospitality

and freedom of expression he enjoyed there, Voltaire soon

became the center of quarrels and scandals, which led to a

breach with the king. When he hastily left Prussia in 1753, he was

disillusioned and his friendship with Frederick had soured. Yet

Voltaire and the king resumed their correspondence despite

their differences, continuing it until Voltaire's death in 1778.

In 1770 Frederick had contributed 200 ecus to the subscription for Jean-Baptiste Pigalle's ill-fated statue of Voltaire

organized by a group of French philosophes. Eight years later,

after Voltaire had died, the French mathematician and coeditor

of the Encyclopédie, Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, approached the

king about investing in another sculpture of the patriarch,

this time for Frederick's own collection. In a long letter of early

July 1778 d'Alembert recalled Voltaire's triumphal return to

Paris—but also his last hours, full of concerns about his burial

and his thwarted attempt to regain the Church's approbation.

D'Alembert pleaded with Frederick to set an example for other

European monarchs by giving Voltaire not only the honor

denied him by the French authorities but a dignified funeral

and a religious service as well. In this context d'Alembert men157

24

ENLIGHTENMEN T FIGURE S

Back view of cat. 24

tioned Houdon's bust of Voltaire for the first time, elaborating

in his next letter that it was "made of terracotta, waiting to be

executed in marble," and that it was "worthy of being placed

in His Majesty's collection and given by Him to the academy

in Berlin." For almost two and a half years Houdon's bust was

a recurring subject in correspondence between the encyclopédiste

and the king. D'Alembert also encouraged Frederick to write

his own Eulogy to Voltaire, which was read on 26 November

1778 at the Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin; he suggested

a memorial service that, secretly organized by the Protestant

king, was held in the Catholic church in Berlin on the second

Q

anniversary of Voltaire's death; and he argued for the erection

of a commemorative monument to Voltaire in that same church.

By September 1779 d'Alembert specified that Houdon's

bust of Voltaire, executed in marble, would cost 1,000 ecus

(Reichsthaler), or 3,000 French livres, and was available in two

variants, one "à l'antique," the other—not as picturesque but

of perfect likeness—with a wig. Although interested, Frederick

was hesitant. In October 1779

 ne

 deferred any possible acquisition to the following year, owing to the expenses of the War of

Bavarian Succession. He postponed the purchase again from

May to September 1780, when full payment would be made.

Pressed repeatedly by d'Alembert, the king finally decided he

wanted the bust of Voltaire in contemporary clothing. But he

balked at the idea of a cenotaph to the philosopher in the

Catholic church, arguing that neither the architectural setting

nor the religious context was suitable. While d'Alembert

remained adamant about this proposed monument, he urged

the king to acquire two busts of Voltaire, one for his personal

collection and one for the academy. In November 1780 Frederick put an end to all discussion, saying he would place a bust of

this rare and unique man in the "sanctuary of sciences," where

he would be at home, not in the church, where his ghost would

be indignant and where, after Frederick's death, there would

be counties s chances that some fanatic would mutilate the likeness of this apostle of tolerance. The bust was mentioned a last

time 15 December 1780, when d'Alembert announced that it

9

was completed and ready to be shipped.

On 8 February 1781 the director of the "French studio" at the

Prussian court, Jean-Pierre-Antoine Tassaert, delivered Houdon's

marble bust of Voltaire by royal decree to the Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin. One of the French members of the academy, Dieudonné Thiébault, recalled the occasion, noting that

from his new vantage Voltaire seemed to be able to see, hear,

and spy on all the academicians gathered before him, and wondering if they could continue to meet in the face of mocking the

philosopher's expression. Thiébault thought it remarkable that

Frederick had never seen the bust, even when it passed through

Potsdam in a crate on the river,, nor did he want to see it.11

ULRIK E D. MATHIES

PROVENANC E

Given by King Frederick II of Prussia to the Akademie der Wissenschaften,

Berlin; delivered 8 Feb. 1781 and installed in the conference room; still in the

possession of the academy.

EXHIBITION S

Paris I9OOC, 66, no. 35, ill. p. 14; Berlin 1910,48, no. 239, ill. (and 2nd rev.

éd., 37, no. 32, ill.); Berlin 1912,15, no. 10, pi. 19; Berlin 1955, 71, ill. p. 43;

Barock und Klassik. Kunstzentren des 18. Jahrhunderts in der Deutschen

Demokratischen Republik [exh. cat., Schallaburg] (Vienna, 1984), 220, no.

11.73, ill. P-221' Friedrich il- und die Kunst. Ausstellungzum2oo. Todestag [exh.

cat, Neues Palais] (Potsdam, 1986), 137, no. X.7; Kunst in Berlin 1648-1887

[exh. cat., Altes Museum] (Berlin, 1987), 160-161, no. 097; Voltaire in

Potsdam [exh. cat., Altes Rathaus] (Potsdam, 1991), 117, no. i, pi. i; Friedrich

der Grofic. Samrnkr und Mâzen [exh. cat., Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung

(Munich, 1992-1993), 92, no. 30, ill. p. 93; Paris 1993-1994,228, no. 280.

!59
i. Houdon, Bust of Voltaire, after

3778, plaster, Residenz, Ansbach,

Bayerische Verwaltung der staatlichen

Schlosser, Garten und Seen.

2. Houdon, Bust of Voltaire, 1778,

terracotta, Musée des Beaux-Arts,

Orléans.

coëffé en perruque & posé sur piédouche; hauteur 24 pouces [61 cm]," sold

for 11,810 livres in Houdon's studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795, 14, no. 78; and a

marble "Buste habillé de Voltaire" appeared in the posthumous sale of the

contents of Houdon's studio, 15-17 Dec. 1828,15, no. n.

Besides the present marble, Frederick the Great acquired a plaster

in the same format, which he gave to the library in Berlin (now lost): "Die

Berliner Bibliothek aber bekam eine schône Gipsbuste des verewigten

Voltaire von dem berühmten Pariser Bildhauer Houdon"; "Die Berliner

Gipsbuste ist ein Abgufè der bekleideten Buste von Houdon, welche 1778

gearbeitet und im Foyer des Theatre français, Molière's Büste, von demselben Houdon, gegenüber aufgestellt ist" (Preuss 1832-1834,4:211 and n. i).

Through Grimm, Catherine II acquired for 2,000 livres a plaster

version of Voltaire with a wig (location unknown), along with a bronze of

the variant "tête nue" (see cat. 23, Related Works).

A terracotta-colored plaster, probably "à la française," was bought by

Thomas Jefferson in July 1789 and shipped to the U.S. on his return from

France that fall. It was installed alongside Houdon's bust of Jacques Turgot

in the entrance hall at Monticello, Jefferson's home in Virginia (Monticello

1993,215-216,434).

REFERENCE S

Protocol book of meetings, Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin; meeting

of 8 Feb. 1781 (Akademiearchiv, Bestand Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften [1700-1811], no. I-IV-32); "Assemblées publiques," Nouveaux

mémoires de l'Académie royale des sciences et belles-lettres. Année 1781 (Berlin,

1783), 7; Dieudonné Thiébault, Mes souvenirs de vingt ans de séjour à Berlin

(Berlin, 1804), 5:289-292; Johann David Erdmann Preuss, éd., Urkundenbuch zu der Lebensgeschichte Friedrichs des Grossen (Berlin, 1832-1834), 3:128,

no. 26; Œuvres de Frédéric le Grand, éd. J.D.E. Preuss (Berlin, 1846-1856),

25:122-169; "Corr. Frédéric le Grand," 1857, 176-177; Damilaville 1878,

92-124; Desnoiresterres 1879,115-116; Dierks 1887,61-62,145 (mistakenly

listed as terracotta); Seidel 1892,1892, 64-65; Seidel 1900,33-34, ill. after

p. 34; Lami 1910-1911,1:420; Giacometti 1918-1919, 2:27,354; Giacometti

1929, 2:162-163; Mansfeld 1955,172-174, no. 28; Réau 1964,1:81,156,

357-358; 2:45, no. 202; Arnason 1975, 52,112 n. 128.

Principal extant versions of the type with drapery

Marble

Comédie-Française, Paris (inv. S 189); H. (with base) 80 cm; inscribed across

front of base: "François Marie Arouet de VOLTAIRE, né à Paris en 1694 et

mort en 1778"; on right side of base: "Fait par Houdon Sculpteur. 1778";

placed at the Comédie-Française, 18 Feb. 1779, "Pour les entrées de Dezède

auteur de la musique des Deux Pages" (inventory book of the Comédie

Française). See Monval 1897,40-41, no. 38.

Plasters

Residenz, Ansbach (inv. AnsRes P2o) (see fig. i); H. 61 cm (with base: 72.5

cm), W. 54 cm; painted terracotta color; cachet de l'atelier on proper left side

of back; probably acquired by Margrave Alexander in Paris; recorded in Fischer 1786, 60, as installed in the Residenz at Ansbach in a room next to the

library holding the coin collection: "Das Hochfurstliche Munzkabinett...

findet sich neben der Bibliothek in einem sehr schônen, mit Antiken,

RELATE D WORK S

Documented versions of the bust of Voltaire "à la française,"

with or without drapery

On 4 June 1778 the Académie française decided to commission a painting

after Houdon's bust of Voltaire for their main assembly hall, as a pendant

to a copy of Nicholas de Largillière's portrait of the twenty-four-year-old

Voltaire. Although Houdon granted permission, the idea was abandoned

and the bust itself acquired; a terracotta presented as a gift from Jean Le

Rond d'Alembert in a public session paying tribute to the late philosopher

on 25 Aug. 1778.

In Jan. 1779 Houdon honored a promise to d'Alembert to give plasters

of the bust to each academician, who responded by granting him free lifetime admission to their meetings, a copy of their dictionary, and a bag with

TOO jetons (Registres 1895, 3:435, 436, 440, 442, 447). Houdon also sent a

bust to the Loge des Neuf Soeurs on 26 Feb. 1779 (Bachaumont 1780-1789,

13:294-295).

A terracotta of the bust with drapery at Salon of 1779, no. 219, as "Buste

en terre cuite," with Houdon's bust of Molière. A marble "Buste de Voltaire,

3. Bust of Voltaire,

after 1780, engraving,

BNEst, Hénin

Collection.

160
TTT

Gemàhlden, und einer Sammlung von Gemmen und Busten gezierten

Zimmer. Erst vor kurzem ist das zu Paris verfertigte Brustbild Voltàrs dahin

geliefert worden." See Bogyay 1964,117-120, figs. 8-10; Paradles des Rokoko.

2: Galli Bibiena und der Musenhofder Wilhelmine von Bayreuth [exh. cat.,

Bayerische Verwaltung der staatlichen Schôsser, Garten und Seen] (Bayreuth,

1998), 152, no. 39, ill.

Staatliches Museum, Schwerin (inv. 5924); H. 63 cm (with base: 74.5

cm), W. 54 cm; cachet de l'atelier on lower center of back of truncation; from

collection of the duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. See Schwerin 2000,180,

no. 6, ill.

Principal extant versions of the type without drapery

Marbles

Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. RF1426); H. 48 cm (with base: 63 cm), W. 44.3

cm; inscribed: "HOUDON. 1778"; purchased from Colonel "Bou...ville"

in 1848 by the French ministry of the interior; transferred to the Louvre

in 1906. See Louvre cat. 1998, 2:426, ill.

Musée national du château de Versailles (inv. MV 852; MR 2189); H. 53

cm (with base: 66 cm), W. 41 cm; inscribed on proper left side: "Houdon.

F 1782"; bought from M. Sellier by Alexandre Lenoir in 1801 for the Musée

des monuments français for 500 francs; transferred to the Galerie dAngoulême

in the Louvre in 1821; then to Versailles in 1832. See Versailles cat. 1993,372,

no. 1741, ill.

National Gallery of Art, Washington (inv. 1942.9.127); H. 52.7 cm, W.

45.5 cm; inscribed on center back: "AROUET DE VOLTAIRE, / NÉ À PARIS

EN 1694, ET MORT EN 1778"; on truncation of proper right arm: HOUDON,

F. 1778"; reportedly executed for the Lamorinière family, France, and taken by

them to England in 1870/1871; Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, by 1900; sold

8 Nov. 1901 to Peter A.B. Widener, Pennsylvania. See NGA cat. 1994, no, ill.

Plaster

Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris (inv. 19084); H. 54.5 cm (with base: 67 cm),

W. 45 cm; Dupré bequest in 1913.

Terracotta

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans (inv. 1693) (see fig. 2); H. 49 cm (with marble

base: 60 cm), W. 42 cm; inscribed on truncation of proper right arm: "houdon

f. 1778"; cachet de l'atelier on truncation of proper left arm; from collection of

François-Pascal Haudry (1718-1800); Haudry sale, Orléans [1800], no. 49;

Vandeberghe collection; acquired ca. 1848 by M. Dupuis and donated to the

museum by Miles Dupuis in 1887. See Dijon and Orléans 1992,81, no. 9, ill.

Prints

Two undated engravings show the Berlin marble on a round base, from

below and to the left against a dark background, one with a French inscription— "Monsieur de Voltaire, d'après le buste donné par le Roi de Prusse

à l'Académie de Berlin"—and the other German (BNEst, Hénin Collection,

D 285374 and D 285375) (see fig. 3).

Signature on cat. 24

1. See Frederick's letter of 22 June 1780 to d'Alembert,

in Preuss 1846-1856, 25:156, no. 221.

2. See Henning and Henning 1988,328-331, and

index; Frederick A. Spear, Bibliographie analytique des

écrits relatifs à Voltaire 1966-1990 (Oxford, 1992),

48-51, nos. 340-369, and index.

3. See Frederick's correspondence with d'Alembert,

6 July-26 Sept. 1770, in Preuss 1846-1856, 24:488-

489,491-492,497-498, 501, nos. 77,79, 82, 85.

4. On Frederick's involvement with d'Alembert, who

was considered by some to have been the secret president of the Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, see

van Treese 1974.

5. Second postscript, dated 3 July 1778 and letter of

15 Aug. 1778, in Preuss 1846-1856, 25:114,116, nos.

200, 201.

6. See letters Preuss 1846-1856, 25:117-118,122,124,

126,128-129,136,141,148,150,152,156-157,159,

162-163,165,167-169, nos. 202, 205-209, 212, 214,

217-227.

7. See Preuss 1846-1856,7:50-86.

8. Described in Thiébault 1804, 5:292-303.

9. The bust bears the date 1778, the year of the

conception of its first model.

10. Preuss 1832-1834, 3:128, no. 26. See also the

handwritten protocol book of the meetings of

the academy. The event was also published under

"Assemblées publiques" in the journal of the

academy (Berlin, 1783), 7.

11. Thiébault 1804, 5:291-292.

161

+ François-Marie Arouet, called Voltaire (1694-1778)

Dated 1778

White marble on a separate, square, white marble base

H. 58.5 cm (with base: 67.7 cm), W. 50.1 cm

Inscription on proper left edge of truncation, filled with black wax:

Ordonné Par / S. M. ]. / L'Impératrice de / Toutes / les Russies / Fait par Houdon / en 1778.

The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (inv. H CK. 7)

Among Houdon's different renderings of Voltaire's likeness,

the marble bust commissioned by Catherine II—in the year

of the philosopher's death —is the most classical in style. The

subject is depicted "à l'antique," not only with a bare head but

in a Roman toga, deliberately evoking the image of an ancient

Roman orator. Catherine II had read Voltaire's writings voraciously during her long ascendancy to power, and she had

started to correspond with the author as soon as she assumed

political control over her vast empire in 1762. The letters

between this enlightened absolutist ruler and the "aubergiste

de l'Europe" form one of the outstanding epistolary exchanges

of the Age of Enlightenment. Catherine's involvement with

the philosophes extended to inviting Diderot to complete the

Encyclopédie in Russia after he encountered problems with

French censors in 1762 and offering to bury Voltaire in Russian

soil in 1778 when the French clergy opposed giving a decent

burial to a man known for his atheist views and mockery of the

Catholic Church. Both Catherine and her philosophe friends

were keenly aware of the enormous propagandistic potential

of their correspondence.

The circumstances of Voltaire's triumphant return to the

French capital on 10 February 1778, just a few months before

his death on 30 May, are well known, as is his veritable apotheosis: the crowning of his bust with a laurel wreath in his presence on the stage of the Comédie-Française two months earlier

(30 March 1778). Frédéric-Melchior Grimm appears to have

informed Catherine II by late February 1778 of Voltaire's fragile health. That there were plans to commission a bust can be

deduced from a letter Catherine wrote to Grimm on 13 April

1778, confirming that such a portrait would give her great pleasure but expressing dismay that Voltaire's health should have

been compromised by his last journey to Paris. On receiving

news of Voltaire's death soon after, Catherine plunged into a

profound and possibly genuine depression, as she wrote to

Grimm on 21 June 1778: "I feel a sense of universal discouragement and a great contempt for all the things of this world."

When communicating her disgust that the French clergy had

refused an honorable burial to one of the greatest thinkers of his

age, she even asked to Grimm to send Voltaire's body to Russia, where she could give her mentor "the most precious tomb

possible." Whether or not she received the body, she said, she

would certainly have a monument constructed. This eventually

led her to commission the Seated Voltaire (Frank essay, fig. 2). She

also directed Grimm to secure Voltaire's library and whatever

163

2

5
remained of his papers, and she requested the plans and a

model of Voltaire's house, which she intended to reconstruct

in the gardens of Tsarskoye Selo as a sort of shrine to her mentor. Against this background Catherine's commissions assume

an altogether different character than simply the collecting of

busts as tokens of the widely celebrated friendship cult in late

eighteenth century Europe.

On ii August 1778 the empress increased from 1,500 to

2,000 livres the amount she was willing to pay for a bronze

bust of Voltaire "tête nue" and a plaster of Voltaire "à la

française" (cats. 23 and 24), signaling her appreciation for

Houdon, the artist who would execute them. On i October 1778

she expressed her complete satisfaction with Grimm's commissions upon their safe arrival in St. Petersburg. She added,

however, that she preferred the bronze bust over the other representations: "The famous desk [the so-called Chesme-Desk by

Augustin-Barnabe de Mailly] is the ornament of my hermitage,

as well as the two busts of Voltaire; I like the bust without a wig

better; you know of my aversion to wigs and busts with wigs in

particular; it always seems to me that wigs are used to inspire

g

laughter." On 30 October 1778 Catherine repeated her preference for the Voltaire "tête nue": "I have already informed you

of the arrival of the busts by Houdon; since then I have not

stopped looking at the one without the wig, whereas the one

9

with the wig does not interest me in the slightest."

When Grimm finally sent the empress the receipt for these

two busts on 8 November 1778, he informed her that work on

the marble bust was well under way: "The one that Houdon does

in marble advances greatly. I judge that it will be ready by the

end of the year, exhibited throughout the months of January and

February as something belonging to our august Empress, in

order to satisfy the artist's vanity, and in March it will leave for

Rouen to be sent to its destination by the first ship." In the

same letter Grimm mentioned that Voltaire's niece, Mme Denis,

was commissioning from Houdon a life-size statue of Voltaire,

sitting in his chair and draped in the manner of the ancients,

which she intended to present to the Académie française; the

model seemed charming to Grimm. Suggesting to Catherine

that she commission from Houdon a similar full-scale image, but

this time standing, he hastened to add that he believed that

the artist would probably die from joy and pride to receive

such a commission.

The marble bust "à l'antique" was indeed presented at the

Salon of 1779, where it received considerable attention, along

with the empress' other Voltaire-related commissions:

That [bust] will be placed in the cabinet of the Empress

of Russia, who, never having been able to enjoy the presence of this famous man, wants to multiply his effigies

everywhere in her palace. She will also own a statue of

him by the same artist in gilded bronze; this really is the

old man of Ferney, he is clad in his night gown, he is

seated in his armchair, the hands supported by the arms

[of the chair]; he comes back from a walk, he is tired,

ready to sleep. This is the familiar scene that the author

has chosen; but, despite the lassitude of his body, his

soul is awake, and the sardonic snigger of this figure

characterizes the harvest of ridicules that the satirical

philosopher has made during his last meditations; he

amuses himself on his own account at the expense of

the fools, the priests, the fanatics, which he will once

again subject to general derision. One has got to admit

that in this small figure, less than a foot tall, there is

more genius than in those of the court [meaning the

series of "Great Men"], the Corneille excluded.

By September 1779

 me

 finished marble bust had reached

Grimm for shipment to St. Petersburg, and it is once more

mentioned in the surviving correspondence between Catherine

II and her Paris agent. When Grimm asked how much he should

pay for the bust, Catherine replied that he should give it the

price he considered appropriate. Unfortunately, there is no

documentation of her response to the bust after it reached St.

Petersburg, but on a journey to Russia in 1790-1792 Portia de

Piles saw it in the middle of the gallery overlooking the hanging

garden of the New Hermitage —in other words, next to the

corridor that connected the Winter Palace with the imperial

throne room. This indicates that during Catherine's lifetime

it was awarded a central position in ceremonial as well as symbolic terms. Despite the empress' turning away from the

French ideal as a result of a Revolution she abhorred, Houdon's

bust, then considered to be among the most truthful renderings

of the "old man of Ferney," remained in the vicinity of her throne.

CHRISTOPH FRAN K

164
ENLIGHTENMEN T FIGURE S

Signature on cat. 25 i. Houdon, Bust of Voltaire, 1778, plaster,

Schlossmuseum Gotha.

2. Houdon, Bust of Voltaire, 1778, bronze,

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Untraced since

World War II.

PROVENANC E

Commissioned by Catherine II in 1778, likely at the suggestion of FrédéricMelchior Grimm; exhibited at the Salon of 1779; still with Grimm in Sept.

1779 before shipment to St. Petersburg, where it appears to have remained

at the Winter Palace ever since (see text above); mentioned in Houdon's list

of his own works (ca. 1794) under the year 1778: "4 Buste[s] de différents

costumes de Mr de Voltaire, tous exécutés en marbre et en bronze."

EXHIBITION S

Paris, Salon cat. 1779, no. 223; Paris 1994, 228, no. 279.

REFERENCE S

Fortia de Piles 1796, 3:21; Desnoiresterr.es 1879, ni-121, esp. 118; Dierks

1887,145-146; V. Vereshchagin, "Proizvedeniya Gudona v'Rossiiy," Starye

Gody (June 1908), 337-338; Vitry 1907^ 201, no. 56; Réau 1914, 44-45;

Réau 1917,141-145; Giacometti 1918-1919,1:72-74; 2:29, 353-354; 3:63;

Réau 19243,190-191; Giacometti 1929, 2:162, 302-303 n. 6.; Réau 1964,

1:79-81, 355-359; 2:44-45, no. 202; Arnason 1975, 52, fig. 116; Guilhem

Scherf, "L'Iconographie sculptée de Voltaire," in Paris 1994, 224-225.

RELATE D WORK S

Schlossmuseum Gotha (inv. P 37) (fig. i); plaster, H. 74.7 cm, W. 49.8 cm,

D. 32.5 cm. See Schuttwolf 1995,151, no. 59; also Guilhem Scherf in Frankfurt 1999-2000,138, no. 81; the latter believes it to be the original model

for the marble.

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; untraced since World War II (fig. 2);

bronze; H. 74.5 cm; signed: "f. [fait] p. [par] houdon en 1778"; collection

of R. Lessing, Berlin; given by the latter to the museum in 1905. See E. F.

Bange, Die Bildwerke in Bronze und in anderen Metallen, vol. 2, Staatliche

Museen zu Berlin, Die Bildwerke des Deutschen Museums, ed. Theodor

Demmler (Berlin and Leipzig, 1923), 45, no. 2923.

1. Bachaumont 1780-1789,11:106-107, i9iff, 238;

and Paris 1994, 95-96, no. 90.

2. SIRIO 1878, 86. The commission was reconfirmed

by the empress in a letter to Grimm on 16 May 1778

(SIRIO 1878, 89). Both Grimm and Diderot were close

acquaintances of Houdon, as can be deduced from a

number of sources, including a letter from Diderot to

Grimm of 2 Sept. 1772; see Diderot (ed. 1955-1970),

12:113-114, no. 765.

3. This is repeated in another letter of i Oct. 1778: "I

do good for doing good, and then that is all; well, that

is what has kept me from the discouragement and the

indifference for the things of this world which I have

felt at the news of Voltaire's death. Furthermore, he

is my master; it is he or rather his writings that have

formed my spirit and my head. I have told you this

more than once, I think: I am his pupil" (see SIRIO

1878, 94 and 102).

4. This extraordinary plan was also disseminated in the

media: "One pretends, moreover, that the Empress of

Russia, who honored Monsieur de Voltaire of a most

intimate correspondence, has indeed suggested to

erect him a mausoleum on her estates" (Bachaumont

1780-1789,12:99).

5. Regarding the sale of Voltaire's library by Mme

Denis to Catherine II see Karp 1998, 252-305;

and Sergei Karp, Quand Catherine II achetait la

bibliothèque de Voltaire (Ferney-Voltaire, 1999).

6. Nothing came of the project; see Paris 1986, 93,

no. 144.

7. SIRIO 1878, 95. For Grimm's reply see SIRIO 1885,19.

8. SIRIO 1878,104. On the Chesme-Desk, part of

the same round of commissions, see Denis Roche,

"La Fameuse Ecritoire d'Augustin Barnabe de Mailly,

peintre en émail," La Renaissance de l'art français et des

industries de luxe 3 (May 1920), 197-202; and Sergei

Karp, "Perepiska Grimma s Verzhennom," in Russkofrancuzskie kul'turnye svjazi v epochu Prosvescenija:

materialy issledovanija. Sbornik pamjati G. S. Kucerenko,

ed. Sergei Karp (Moscow, 2001), 132-166.

9. SIRIO 1878,107-108.

10. SIRIO 1885, 25.

11. Bachaumont 1780,13:245-246.

12. SIRIO 1885, 65-66; and SIRIO 1878,161.

13. Fortia de Piles 1796, 3:21.

165

26

* Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

Dated 1778

Plaster, painted terracotta color

H. 58 cm (with base: 68 cm)

Abbaye royale de Châalis, Institut de France (inv. 429)

By 1765 Jean-Jacques Rousseau had published La Nouvelk Héîoïse,

Emile, and thé Contrat social, works that established him as one

of the greatest French writers of the century. Endorsing a return

to nature, the nurturing of children, and the universal right to

liberty and happiness, his writings brought him international

fame and generated bitter controversy. Rousseau himself led

a troubled, itinerant existence, often driven into exile, alienating

those who befriended him, including Diderot, Frédéric-Melchior

Grimm, and Mme d'Epinay. His differences with Voltaire are

legendary. After spending time in England and the French

provinces in the late 17605, when he wrote his Confessions, he

returned to Paris in 1770 in financial straits and grew increasingly

misanthropic. About 1776 the marquis René-Louis de Girardin,

an artist and highly cultivated gentleman, offered Rousseau

and his wife a place to live on his estate at Ermenonville, north

of Paris, where he had created "natural" gardens inspired by

Rousseau's writings. Rousseau moved there in May 1778 and

lived peacefully until his death on 2 July.

Immediately following Rousseau's death Girardin sent for

Houdon in Paris, asking him to come and make a death mask

of the revered philosophe. Houdon wrote that he "received at

midnight... an express letter from M. de Girardin, who sent it

to me, knowing of my admiration for the great man, and his

constant refusal during his lifetime to allow his bust to be made,

something that I have since done, and that has generally been

found to resemble him." Having recently done portraits of

other great Enlightenment figures, including Diderot and

Voltaire (see cats. 19-25), Houdon was the obvious choice to

record the features of Rousseau. His Death Mask of Rousseau

survives (fig. la-b) and is a moving work that records every

nuance in the writer's lined and sensitive face, including injuries

to his forehead and nose resulting from a fall just before he

died. The eyes are open with a few lashes caught in the plaster,

and the thin mouth almost seems to smile.

Since Houdon reportedly saw Rousseau only once, and by

his own account never had a sitting, he had to rely on other

sources as well as the death mask to capture the philosopher's

appearance. Maurice Quentin de La Tour had shown a pastel

portrait at the Salon of 1753 that inspired many copies, including an excellent engraving by Augustin de Saint-Aubin (fig. 2).

Houdon too shows Rousseau wearing a short, tightly curled

wig, a coat of a plain material with three large round burtons, a

vest, and a cravat and jabot. Yet the extraordinary liveliness of

the bust and the intelligent, sensitive expression of the eyes and

167
i a-b. Hondón, Death

Mask of Rousseau,

3 July ijjB, gray-white

plaster, Musée JeanJacques Rousseau, Bibliothèque publique et

universitaire, Geneva.

mouth are all Houdon's invention. It was immediately appreciated as a compelling likeness.

Houdon had completed a bust of Rousseau by at least

14 November 1778, when "all of Paris" was apparently visiting

his studio to see portraits of Rousseau, d'Alembert, and Franklin

(cats. 27 and 43). The present bust, executed for Girardin and

signed and dated 1778, was delivered to Ermenonville on 5 July

1779, three days after the anniversary of Rousseau's death.

Girardin's son Stanislas, who had known Rousseau well, wrote

in his journal:

M. Houdon, one of the most famous sculptors in Paris,

also sent my father the bust of Jean-Jacques, the

resemblance of which is striking, especially when looking at it in profile; a smile of merriment is on his mouth;

he is the first artist who makes a cavity for the eyes and

indicates the pupils, which gives his portraits a feeling

of life that is frightening when looking at them a long

time. That impression is all the greater in this one, since

the features of the original are so arresting and he has

given to this plaster a terracotta color that resembles that

of flesh. M. Houdon had all the more merit in making

this bust such a good likeness since he had only seen

Rousseau one time, ten or twelve years ago, and that it

is only after the mask that he made of this philosopher

after his death that he managed, so to speak, to bring

him to life.

On 17 July 1779 "Rozier" wrote to Girardin: "I just learned that

you had [Rousseau] modeled after his death, that you will have

his bust; I beg you, my hands joined, to permit me to ask you

for one of them, or rather to ask your sculptor to cast one for

me." Girardin must have been extremely pleased with the sculpture, for he had his own portrait painted with the bust of

Rousseau beside him (fig. 3).

There is disagreement in the literature as to whether the

present bust is identical with that shown at the Salon of 1779

(no. 220) as belonging to Girardin. The Salon catalogue lists

the work under the rubric "bust in terracotta," but there are

sculptures in other media (gilt bronze and marble) in the same

group. Girardin is recorded as having only one bust of Rousseau,

in plaster painted to resemble terracotta, and it was in his possession by July 1779, thus it was possibly the same bust exhibited at the Salon: "What fire...in the last one [Rousseau],

whose piercing look seem to penetrate into the most hidden

innermost folds of the human heart! There is above all... a

certain point of view from which the illusion is so complete

and the gaze so direct and so vivid that one believes this bust

to be alive, so that one cannot stand it and the first reaction is

to withdraw."

As the Revolution approached, Rousseau became a political hero for the Republican cause, and his ideas of personal freedom, equality, and the virtues of the common man were often

cited as sources of inspiration in the movement against oppression. On 2i December 1790 the Constituent Assembly voted to

erect a monument to Rousseau; and Houdon, assuming he

would be awarded the commission, submitted a terracotta

model (lost). But the assembly decided to open a competition.

168
ENLIGHTENMEN T FIGURE S

2. Augustin de Saint-Aubin,

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, ça. 1777,

engraving after Maurice-Quentin

de La Tour, BNEst.

3. Attributed to Jean-Baptiste Greuze,

Marquis René de Girardin, ça. 1780,

oil on canvas, Institut de France,

Musée de Châalis.

In a brochure published in Paris 5 June 1791 and addressed

to the president of the Société des amis de la constitution,

Houdon protested:

When the National Assembly voted to erect a statue of

J.-J. Rousseau, several deputies... imagined that, having

executed the bust with the best likeness that has been

done up until now of this great man, I could have some

claim perhaps or at least some well-founded hope to be

the artist chosen to do that statue; all the more that,

Jean-Jacques being dead, alone in possessing the mask,

I could almost say that the likeness was my property,

since no matter what artist is chosen... the head could

not be by him, since he will be obliged to take my bust,

o

if he wants Jean-Jacques to be a good likeness.

The project went through a number of delays and changes until

9

it was abandoned altogether in 1798.

ANN E L. POULET

PROVENANC E

The original plaster, based on death mask taken by Houdon 3 July 1778 (see

text above); delivered to the marquis René-Louis de Girardin (1735-1808),

5 July 1779 (see Gillet 1924, 327-328); remained in his family's possession

until the death of the marquis Fernand de Girardin; purchased by the Institut de France, which placed it on deposit at the Abbaye de Châalis in 1923.

EXHIBITION S

Paris, Salon cat. 1779, 45, no. 220, under "Buste en terre cuite [sic]": "}. J.

Rousseau. Appartenant à M. le Marquis de Gerardin [sic]."

REFERENCE S

Les Connaisseurs ou la matinée du sallon des tableaux (Paris, 1779), 16 (Deloynes

XI, no. 199); L'Abbé Aubert, "Exposition des tableaux au salon du Louvre en

1779..." (Paris, 1779), 220 (Deloynes xi, no. 203); Encore un rêve, suite de la

prêtresse. A Rome et se trouve à Paris chez Valade (Paris, 1779),

 25 (Deloynes

XI, no. 207); Bachaumont 1780, 326-327, letter 3, 28 Sept. 1779; "Lettres

sur les Salons de 1773,1777 et 1779 adressées par Du Pont de Nemours à la

Margrave Caroline-Louise de Bade," AAF, n.s. 2 (Paris, 1908), 119-120;

Comte de Girardin, Iconographie de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Portraits, scènes,

habitations, souvenirs (Paris, 1908), 264, no. im; Hippolyte BufFenoir, "JeanJacques Rousseau et Houdon," Mercure de France 97 (July 1912), 14-44; Paul

Vitry, "Les Monuments à J.-J. Rousseau de Houdon à Bartholomé," GBA 8,

4th ser. (1912), 100, ill. p. 99; André Martin-Decaen, Le Marquis René de

Girardin (1735-1808) (Paris, 1912), 113; Hippolyte BufFenoir, Les Portraits de

Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Etude historique et iconographique, souvenirs, documents,

témoinages (Paris, 1913), 1:212; Alexis François, "Review of BufFenoir, 1913,

vol. I," Annales de la Société Jean-Jacques Rousseau 10 (Geneva, 1914-1915),

220-222; Giacometti 1918-1919, 2:308; Adrien Bovy, "Les Bustes de JeanJacques Rousseau par Houdon," La Semaine littéraire, no. 1384 (10 July 1920),

318-321; Louis Gillet, "Le Buste de Rousseau de la collection de Girardin au

Musée de Châalis," Beaux-Arts, no. 21 (15 Dec. 1924), 326-328, ill.; Louis

Gillet, "La Collection Girardin au Musée de Châalis. Le Reliquaire de JeanJacques," Revue des deux mondes 29 (Sept. 1925), 134-161, esp. 143-148;

Paris 1928, 66; Giacometti 1929, 2:135;

 Réau ^64, 1:81-82, 96, 180,

360-363; 2:41; Worcester 1964, 68; London 1972, 248; Arnason 1975,

48-49, ni n. 116; Le Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans. Musée et monuments de

France (Paris, 1996), 114.

RELATE D WORK S

Of the three variant types of Houdon's busts of Rousseau—contemporary

dress with wig, nude without wig, and wearing a toga with a philosopher's

band in his hair—there are many more examples of the first, especially in

plaster and terracotta, but no definitive study has yet determined their

number, dates, and authenticity. A partial list of busts with eighteenthcentury provenances follows.

Death mask

Musée Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Bibliothèque publique et universitaire,

Geneva (inv. 378) (see figs. ia-b); gray white plaster; H. (chin to top of head)

22.4 cm (with base: 30.5 cm), W. 16.1 cm; executed 3 July 1778 (see text

above); posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio, Paris, 15-17 Dec.

1828,15, no. 15 (to M. Hazard for 655 francs) (Réau 1964,1:119); Gossuin sale,

Paris, 14 May 1860 (bought in); posthumous sale of Mme Gossuin, 14 May

1861 (to Emile Raspail for 346 francs); by inheritance to his son Julien

Raspail; sold by latter to the library in Geneva, 1952. See Philippe Burty,

"Mouvement des arts et de la curiosité. Le Masque original de J.-J. Rousseau,"

GBA 6 (1860), 358-359; and Auguste Bouvier, "Note sur le masque mortuaire de Rousseau par Houdon," Annales de la Société Jean-Jacques Rousseau

33 (1953-1955), 295-297, ill.

Contemporary dress with wig

Terracottas

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans (inv. 1692), H. 50 cm (with base: 60 cm), W.

46 cm; inscribed on truncation of proper right arm: "houdon. 1778"; open

at back; cachet de l'atelier at center back, upper edge of truncation;

collection of François-Pascal Haudry (1728-1800); his posthumous sale,

169
Orléans [1800], 31, no. 50; Vandeberghe collection; acquired ca. 1848 by M.

Dupuis; given to museum in 1887 by the Miles Dupuis. See Girardin 1908,

264, no. 1115; Réau 1964, 2:41.

Musée de l'Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris (inv. MU

1245); H. 47.5 cm (with base: 58.5 cm), W. 44.5 cm, D. 28 cm; inscribed on

truncation of proper right arm: "houdon 1778"; cachet de l'atelier on back.

See Eugène Müntz, "Le Musée de l'Ecole des beaux-arts," GBA 4, 3rd ser.

(1890), 54-55; and Rabaud 1938,112.

Musée Lambinet, Versailles (inv. 700 B); cast terracotta; H. 45.5 cm,

W. 37.5 cm, D. 25 cm; inscribed on truncation of proper right shoulder:

"houdon. 1779"; cachet de l'atelier on back; truncation in front is unusually

short, showing only two buttons; reportedly from collection of "Monsieur

de Boufflers, dans sa maison des Fonds-Saint-Légers (Saint Germain)."

See Versailles 1928, 31-32, no. 45; and Gendre 1997,120, fig. 190.

Plasters

Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Berlin (inv. K14); H. 55.6 cm (with base: 70 cm),

W. 49.2 cm; painted terracotta color; inscribed on truncation of proper right

arm: "houdon 1778"; open at back; cachet de l'atelieron lower back edge of

truncation; from Poelchau collection. See Erich Biehahn, Kunstwerke der

Deutschen Staatsbibliothek (Berlin, 1961), 191, pi. 55.

Staadiches Museum, Schwerin (inv. Pi 281); H. 56.4 cm (with base: 68.6

cm), W. 48.5 cm; inscribed on truncation of proper right arm: "houdon.

1778"; painted terracotta color; open at back; cachet de l'atelier at center of

lower back edge of truncation; probably purchased by Prince Friedrich Franz

of Mecklenberg-Schwerin on his trip to Paris in 1782 or shortly thereafter. See

Steinmann 1911, 212, 216-217, %• 9'>

 an<^ Schwerin 2000,182, no. 7, ill.

Nude without wig

Plasters

Schlossmuseum Gotha (inv. P 30); painted bronze color; H. 37.8 cm (with

base: 46.4 cm), W. 22.4 cm, D. 24.1 cm; inscribed on proper right edge of

truncation: "houdon f 1778"; probably acquired by Ernst II from Houdon;

probably identical with version mentioned in Klebe 1796, 103; "Verzeichniss der im sogenannten Antiken-Saale befindlichen Abgüsse, Büsten

pp." (undated, ThStA Gotha, ca. 1804-1827, fol. 6r), no. 40, under "Cap: III":

"Fine Buste von Houdon (Rousseau)." See Schuttwolf 1995,152, no. 60, ill.

Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris (inv. 17537); painted terracotta color;

H. 37 cm (with base: 49 cm), W. 21.5 cm; inscribed on truncation of proper

right shoulder: "houdon £.1778"; cachet de l'atelier, gift of Mme Edouard

Tresca, 6 Dec. 1910. See Buffenoir 1913, 218.

Wearing toga and headband, with base in form of a herm

Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. LP1729); bronze; H. 45 cm (with base: 60 cm),

W. 30.5 cm, D. 23.3 cm; inscribed on truncation of proper right shoulder:

Back view of cat. 26

"houdon. f. 1778"; collection of Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac (1755-1841);

Louvre acquired from him in 1838. See Louvre cat. 1998, 2:421.

Paris, Salon cat. 1791 (published edition), 37, no. 484: "Onze morceaux

de Sculpture, Bustes tant en marbre qu'en Terre cuite, Plâtre, & Bronze... ";

La Béquil de Voltaire au Salon... (Paris, [1791]) (Deloynes XVII, no. 439), 42:

"Remarquez à côté, un buste de rousseau très-ressemblant, par M. Houdon;

et au dessus un autre Rousseau en pied, qui l'est moins."

Reduction, unknown type

Paris, Salon cat. 1789, 47, no. 247, under "Têtes en marbre de petite proportion": "J. J. Rousseau." See Les Elèves au Salon ou l'Amphigouri (Paris,

1789), 43: "Aux portraits que tu en fais, je les reconnais ces charmants

modèles... nos sublimes J. J. Rousseau et Buifon." No example is known.

Sales in Houdon's lifetime

Dubois-Verrier et Claudion Frères, Paris, 12 June 1783, no. 57: "Le buste de

Voltaire d'après M. Houdon. Terre cuite. Vendu avec le buste de J.-J. Rousseau.

Ces deux morceaux ont encore le mérite de ressembler parfaitement."

[Chevalier] by Lebrun, Paris, 28 Nov. 1785, no. 104: "Les bustes en plâtre

de Voltaire et de J. J. Rousseau par Houdon. H. 18 pouces [45.7 cm]."

[D'Espagnac et Tricot] by Lebrun, Paris, 22 May 1793, no. 193: "Deux

bustes en bronze, l'un celui de J. J. Rousseau et l'autre celui de Voltaire,

élevés sur leurs piédouches en marbre. Adjugés 620 livres à Haudry."

L'Elysée, Paris, 13 Aug. 1798, no. 83: "Trois bustes Molière, Voltaire

et Rousseau en plâtre, réparés par Houdon"; no. 92: "Deux bustes en marbres, Voltaire et Rousseau d'après le modèle de Houdon."

Haudry, Orléans, [1800], 31, "Terres-cuites," nos. 49 and 50, 185 and

186, "Quatre bustes posés sur colonnes, représentant: Voltaire, J.-J. Rousseau,

Molière et La Fontaine par Houdon—H. 18 p [45.7 cm]."

Boilly paintings

A terracotta-color bust of Rousseau in contemporary dress and wig appears

at the left side of the lower shelf in the background of both versions of Boilly's

paintings of Houdon in His Studio (see cat. 66).

1. Letter from Houdon to Camus, president of the

Comité des pensions, Feb. or Mar. 1791 (see Buffenoir

1913,1:228).

2. Letter from David d'Angers to M. Duriez, 6 Jan.

1839, said that M. Régler, a former assistant to

Houdon, had seen Rousseau posing for his master.

Given Houdon's own testimony, this is doubtful

(see Buffenoir 1913,1:219).

3. See Girardin 1908,44-47.

4. Métra 1787-1790,7:117.

5. See François 1914-1915, 221 n. 2; and Gillet 1924,

327-328.

6. See François 1914-1915, 221 n. i.

7. Bachaumont 1780, 326-327, letter 3, 28 Sept. 1779.

8. Houdon, Réflexions sur les concours en général,

et sur celui de la statue dej. J. Rousseau en particulier

(see Buffenoir 1913, 233-235).

9. See Gisela Grammacini, "Sur le projet d'élever un

monument en l'honneur de Rousseau," in La Révolution française, et l'Europe 1789-1799 [exh. cat., Galeries

nationales du Grand Palais] (Paris, 1989), 3:893-902.

170
* Jean Le Rond d'Alembert (1717-1783)

Probably 1802

White marble with gray veining on round wood base

H. 41.43 cm (with base: 52.55 cm), W. 28.4 cm, D. 23.5 cm

Inscribed on truncation of proper right shoulder: houdon.f. 1779

Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of McA. Donald Ryan, B.A. 1934, and William H. Ryan, Class of 1921$ (inv. 1957.47.1)

Houdon's portrait of the mathematician, scientist, and man of

letters Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, one of the key figures in the

Paris Enlightenment, has been preserved in only two known

works: the present marble, depicting d'Alembert "à l'antique"

with bare head and neck (following the format of Houdon's

Diderot, cats. 19 - 22); and a plaster of him wearing a wig and

contemporary dress (fig. i). Unlike Houdon's busts of the

other philosophes, namely those of Voltaire and Jean-Jacques

Rousseau (see cats. 23-26), his likeness of d'Alembert was not

reproduced in multiple versions and materials and was not

shown in a Salon exhibition until 1801. Even contemporary documents and sales catalogues record only a few copies.

The reason for the small dissemination may stem in part

from the mathematician's elusive personality and his apparent

lack of popularity with the masses. Coeditor of the Encyclopédie

with Diderot from 1747 to 1758, an avid participant in the

Parisian salons and academies, and a longstanding correspondent of Voltaire and Frederick the Great, d'Alembert stood at

the center of the intellectual movement of his time. Defying his

illegitimate (although aristocratic) birth, he rose to prominence

as a brilliant scientist and sought-after conversationalist, always

eager to keep his financial and institutional independence.

At age twenty-four he was appointed a member of the Académie

royale des sciences, and at thirty-seven he was elected to the

Académie française, of which he later became permanent

secretary. While infamous for his anticlerical and pugnacious

attitude and his devastating wit, he was also characterized as

tepid, shy, and emotionally immature. By the time Houdon

executed his portrait, d'Alembert was in his early sixties and

already past the prime of his career. He had been in poor health

and complaining of a failing mind for a few years, but the death

of his long-time love, the salon hostess Julie de Lespinasse

(1732 -1776), struck him a great blow, which was exceeded only

by his belated discovery of her passionate affairs with other men.

When Voltaire died on 30 May 1778, dAlembert, relying on

his preeminent role in the academies as well as his connection

to the Prussian king, made it his mission to avenge his old friend

and mentor, whom the authorities had denied a decent burial

and religious service. Probably around the same time, his relationship with Houdon, who had just created a sensation with his

portraits of Molière and Voltaire (cats, n and 24), became more

amicable. As presiding secretary of the Académie française,

dAlembert approached the sculptor in early June asking for

permission to have a painting made after the newly finished

171

27

ENLIGHTENMEN T FIGURE S

i. Houdon, Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, 1778, plaster (before its repainting in

i9#5j, Staatliches Museum, Schwerin.

2. Houdon, Barthélémy, ça. 1802, marble, Bibliothèque Nationale, Pans,

cabinet des médailles.

bust of the late patriarch —a favor that Houdon graciously

granted, contrary to his usual practice. Furthermore, Houdon

promised to give plaster copies of the bust to "most" academicians, as d'Alembert announced on 10 June, eventually including every single member. D'Alembert in turn avidly promoted

Houdon's work; he not only talked Frederick II into acquiring

a marble of Houdon's Voltaire "à la française" (cat. 24) for the

Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin but also personally

offered a terracotta version of it and a cast of the Molière to

the Académie française. The Académie française, for its part,

formally rewarded Houdon for his acts of generosity and

showered him with gifts, including lifetime admission to all of

their meetings. Following the mathematician's death, Houdon

expressed his lasting loyalty to his academic supporter by donating his bust of d'Alembert to the Académie royale des sciences

(see Related Works).

There is no documentary evidence that d'Alembert ever

sat for Houdon, but the first version of his portrait must have

been created during the second half of 1778, corresponding to

the date that appears on the plaster in Schwerin (fig. i). On

14 November 1778 François Métra recorded that "all of Paris"

flocked to Houdon's studio to see the busts of Jean-Jacques

Rousseau, d'Alembert, and Benjamin Franklin (see cats. 26

and 43). Although apparently well received, the portrait of

d'Alembert in contemporary French dress and wig was never

shown at the Salon. More than twenty years later, and long after

d'Alembert's death, Houdon introduced a variant, which represents the sitter without drapery or wig. It is mentioned in a

review of the Salon of 1801 written by Mme de Vandeul,

Diderot's daughter, for Jacques-Henri Meister, who was continuing to distribute the Correspondance littéraire from Zurich:

"a bust of d'Alembert by [Houdon], tête nue; I do not find it as

good, in terms of resemblance, as the less beautiful one with a

0

wig." The marble, exhibited a year later under its own number,

was welcomed by the critics: "The citizen Houdon exhibited

several very beautiful portraits. Those of the abbé Barthélémy

and d'Alembert are of perfect likeness. It is probable that he

executed them to be placed in the Bibliothèque Nationale. At

least, that is what we would want. It is to be hoped that the

portraits of famous men, who made French literature illus9

trious, be placed in this precious depository."

Despite its date of 1779,

 me

 present marble has all the

stylistic earmarks of Houdon's late works and is almost certainly

identical with the one shown in the Salon of 1802. A comparison with the bust of Barthélémy (fig. 2), mentioned as the

!73
3- Félix Lecomte, Jean

Le Rond d'Alembert,

2774, marble,

Musée du Louvre,

Pans.

PROVENANC E

Possibly identical with bust mentioned in Gimpel 1963, 411: "5 Janvier

[1930]. — Un nouveau Houdon... a été découvert par M. Souffrice... c'est le

Portrait de d'Alembert. Il l'a montré à Giacometti qui... l'a reconnu"; acquired

in 1931 by John Barry Ryan, New York, through Arnold Seligman, Rey and

Co., New York, as "from the collection of Octavien de Puygallarde, Paris"; presented to the university in 1957 by McA. Donald Ryan and William H. Ryan.

EXHIBITION S

Possibly Paris, Salon cat. 1802,72, no. 429: "D'Alembert," along with "S. S.

Barthélémy" and "Etude de femme," under "Houdon... Bustes en marbre,"

as "Ils appatiennent à l'auteur"; Worcester 1964, 63-65, ill.; London

1972, 248-249, no. 384; New York 1981, no. 6; Europa 1789. Aufklârung,

Verklàrung, Verfall [exh. cat., Hamburger Kunsthalle] (Hamburg, 1989), 107,

no. 32, ill.

REFERENCE S

Dierks 1887,112; Lami 1910-1911,1:416; Giacometti 1918-1919, 2:51-53;

Giacometti 1929, 2:1-2; Charles Seymour, "Houdon's Marble Bust of

d'Alembert," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin 25, no. 2 (Oct. 1958), 4-15;

Réau 1964,1:79,354~355:2:25>no- 79'> Arnason 1975,49,98,111-112 n. 117,

fig. no, pis. 50 and i43g.

companion piece for the proposed installation in the Bibliothèque Nationale, reveals striking similarities in the quality of

its carving, the treatment of the hair, and details such as the

wrinkles around the eyes. As Houdon often did for variants of

his portraits, he based the marble on the model he executed in

1778/1779, simply removing the accessories and adjusting the

features and the torso to the new format "à l'antique." He was

possibly influenced by another portrait of d'Alembert, executed

by Félix Lecomte in 1774 for the sitter's dose friend Claude-Henri

Watelet, a member of the Académie française (fig. 3). This bust,

copied by Guillaume Francin after 1798 for Alexandre Lenoir's

Musée des monuments français, depicts the mathematician

without draperies and "bare-headed, as was his practice when

he worked." D'Alembert himself referred to it in a letter to

Voltaire, when he made dear that he would not sit for yet another

portrait: "Poncet came to my house with a letter from you... and

I thanked him for his good intentions, saying that a famous

sculptor from this country had just done a bust of me, and that

he could make a copy of it if he wanted to do so." Probably

owing to d'Alembert's shyness about being modeled, Houdon's

marble bust remains one of the few sculptural images of the

famous philosophe.

ULRIK E D . MATHIE S E S

RELATE D WORK S

Version "tête nue"

A bust in an unspecified medium was exhibited at the Salon of 1801 but not

listed in the catalogue (see text above).

Variant with contemporary French dress and wig

Staatliches Museum, Schwerin (fig. i); only known example of this type;

plaster painted glossy orange-red in 1985; H. 44 cm (with base: 53.5 cm), W.

29.3 cm; inscribed on truncation of proper right shoulder: "houdon 1778";

acquired by prince of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Friedrich Franz, after visiting

Houdon's studio in Dec. 1782. See Steinmann 1911, 217-219, fig. n; Mansfeld 1955,159-160, no. 39; and Schwerin 2000,178, no. 5, ill. p. 179.

Unspecified type

Terracotta in Houdon's studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795, 17, no. 99: "Le Buste de

d'Alembert, sur piédouche en marbre Sainte-Anne; hauteur totale 20 pouces"

(300 livres).

Plaster in posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio, 15-17 Dec.

1828,15, no. 16, sold for 9 francs, along with busts of Robert Fulton and the

comte de Buffon: "Plâtre peint. — Buste de J. L. d'Alembert, mort le 29 octobre 1783" (Réau 1964,1:119).

Houdon's bust of d'Alembert, which he gave to the Académie royale

des sciences after the sitter's death, was installed at the public session on

2i Apr. 1784 in which d'Alembert's disciple Condorcet read his eulogy.

According to Bachaumont 1780-1789, 25:288: "M. Houdon, whose chisel

seems especially devoted to perpetuating the image of famous men, made

a gift to the academy of a bust of the deceased. It has just been put in place,

and it is before this image that M. de Condorcet burned his incense."

Erroneous mentions

No bust of d'Alembert by Houdon was bought by Swiss banker RodolpheFerdinand Grand (1726-1794), as maintained in Réau 1964,1:340; Réau

misinterpreted an entry in Benjamin Franklin's journal, dated 21 July 1784,

174
ENLIGHTENMEN T FIGURE S

that reads: "Count de Haga [pseud, for King Gustav III of Sweden] sends

his card to take leave. M. Grand tells me he has bought here my bust with

that of M. D'Alembert or Diderot, to take with him to Sweden. He set out

last night" (The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Albert Henry Smyth

[London, 1907], 10:357). The bust of Diderot acquired by the Swedish king

on his sojourn to Paris is still in the collection of the Nationalmuseum

Stockholm (see cat. 22).

The incorrect assumption of the existence of a marble bust of d'Alembert

by Houdon in The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, repeatedly

mentioned in the older literature (Lami 1910-1911; Giacometti 1918-1919,

2:52; Giacometti 1929, 2:2), was corrected in Louis Réau, "Catalogue de l'art

français dans les musée russes," BSHAF (1928), 305, no. 70.

Print

An 1805 engraving by Augustin de Saint-Aubin after Houdon's bust

"tête nue" shows the sitter in left profile within an oval medallion; see

Emmanuel Bocher, Les Gravures françaises du XVI II siècle (Paris, 1875-1882),

5:26, no. 64.

Signature on cat. 27

1. For more biographical information see Kafker

and Kafker 1988, 2-8, and references therein;

still the standard monograph is Ronald Grimsley,

Jean d'Alembert (1737-83) (Oxford, 1963).

2. On the contradictory appraisals of d'Alembert's

character see van Treese 1974,7-12.

3. See John N. Pappas, Voltaire and d'Akmbert (Bloomington, IN, 1962), 165-169.

4. On this and the following see Registres 1895, 3:435,

436,440, 442,447; and cat. 24, Related Works.

5. Registres 1895,3:443-444; and cat. n, Related Works.

6. Cf. Houdon's inventory of his own works, which lists

the bust under the year 1779 (Vitry 1907!}, 203, no. 63).

7. Métra 1787-1790, 7:117.

8. See Maurice Tourneux, "Lettre de Mme de Vandeul,

née Diderot, sur le Salon de l'an X," BSHAF (1912), 136.

9. "Ouverture du Salon d'exposition annuelle des

peintres vivans," Journal des arts (published in Réau

1964,79).

10. Seymour 1959,12-15, already argued for a late dating,

which was supported by Arnason in Worcester 1964,

63-64, then disputed in Arnason 1975,111-112 n. 117.

11. Musée national du château de Versailles (inv. MV

857; LP 519); see Paris 1989,1:159, no. 215, ill. p. 160.

12. For a description of the later full-length statue of

d'Alembert by the same artist in the withdrawn Salon

cat. of 1791, see Scherf 1997, 57.

13. François-Marie Poncet was a sculptor based in

Rome. For this letter of 25 Mar. 1776, see Œuvres complètes de d'Akmbert, ed. A. Belin (Paris, 1821-1822),

5:235. Réau 1964,1:79, 355, erroneously associated

this passage with Houdon's bust. For Voltaire's recommendation and follow-up letters (6 Feb., 8 Feb.,

and 12 Apr. 1776), see Correspondance. Voltaire, ed.

Theodor Bestermann (Paris, 1977), 12:417, 420,

and 506; nos. 14480,14485, and 14583.

175

28

+ Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788)

Dated 1781

Bronze on gray-veined marble base

H. 47.5 cm (with base: 60 cm), W. 31 cm, D. 20 cm

Inscribed on right shoulder: houdon.f. 1781.

Musée d'art et d'histoire, Neuchâtel (inv. AP 9033)

Georges-Louis Leclerc, thé comte de Buffon, was born at Montbard in Burgundy. A mathematician, he became a membre

associe of the Académie royale des sciences in 1733. He

 was

named director of the Jardin du Roi (later the Muséum national

d'histoire naturelle) in 1739. Ten years later he published, at

the king's expense, the first three volumes of his Histoire

naturelle, which he continued to produce for years. He became

a member of the Académie française in 1753. Buffon, who was

sometimes criticized by the Paris Enlightenment circle, lost his

wife in 1769 at an early age and found consolation in Mme

Suzanne Necker's admiration for him (she was beside him

when he died).

There is an extensive Buffon iconography. A 1761 painting

by François-Hubert Drouais shows him in magnificent French

attire (Musée Buffon, Montbard), and many engravings popularized that vain image. In 1772 Jean-Baptiste Defernex created a plaster bust, exhibited at the Académie de Saint-Luc in

1774, which depicted Buffon with a large drapery and his new

coat of arms as comte (Musée Buffon, Montbard). Augustin

Pajou's marble, exhibited at the Salon of 1773, portrayed a less

haughty man: collar open, lips closed, with an emphasis on his

intellectual energy. Pajou had received a royal commission in

1773 f°r me colossal statue of Buffon "as a philosopher" —that

is, half-draped and heroized —and he carved a bust after it,

personally commissioned by the comte d'Angiviller, that featured Buffon's leonine mane (fig. i). Houdon took these images

into account when he was commissioned to do a portrait of the

illustrious man in 1782, at the height of Buffon's fame and a

few years before his death.

The commission came from Catherine II of Russia. She

wrote Frédéric-Melchior Grimm in 1781, asking him to "get me

a white marble bust of M. de Buffon and to please have Houdon

do it"; she added that "M. de Buffon has a very distinguished

place in my thoughts and... I regard him as the foremost mind

of his kind in this century." On 14 December 1781 Buffon wrote

Catherine II: "The bust Houdon is working on can never express

to my great empress the intense and deep feelings within me:

seventy-four years portrayed in this marble could only cool it

further. I therefore ask permission to have a living being accompany it; my only son, a young officer in the National Guard,

will bring it to the feet of your august person." On 13 April 1782

Grimm informed Catherine: "Tomorrow the last chisel mark

will be given to the bust of M. de Buffon; day after tomorrow

it will be packed." In June 1782 the younger Buffon arrived

177
to be the best likeness; but the sculptor could not render in stone

those black eyebrows that shade black eyes, very active under

beautiful white hair. The hair was dressed when I saw him,

though he was ill; that is one of his obsessions... .He has papers

put in his hair every day, which are put to the iron twice rather

than once; or at least it used to be the case that, after getting his

hair curled in the morning, he very often had it done again for

supper. He's coiffed with five loose curls; his hair, tied at the

back, fell to the middle of his spine." Houdon used great care

in rendering his subject's hair, which is all the more prominent

in that all accessories were omitted to focus attention on the

face. He used here the formula of the Diderot (cat. 19) established ten years before.

The superb Neuchâtel bronze is dated 1781, referring to

the date of the original model, and it exemplifies the bronzecasting abilities of Houdon and his studio: "the casting [is] excellent and the entire surface reworked and chased with meticulous

care." It is almost contemporary with the bronze Diderot sent

to Langres (cat. 21) and possesses many of the same qualities.

The bust of Buffon is "full of fire," noted a critic at the Salon

of 1783. Houdon captured the lively expression that contemporaries found compelling in the sitter: "as soon as he began

to chat with us, we could see a metamorphosis coming about;

his face became animated to the point that one could say with

i. Augustin Pajou, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, 1773,

Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, París.

with the bust in St. Petersburg, where he dined with Catherine

II in her palace of Tsarskoye Selo, and she reported, "The bust

of his father is installed at the Hermitage."

The inscription on the Hermitage marble indicates that it

was carved in 1782. The Louvre marble is undated but may have

been the version exhibited at the Salon of 1783, as the other

known marble had already been sent to Russia. Why did Houdon

carve two marbles almost simultaneously? He may have begun

with the bust now at the Louvre but abandoned the idea of

sending it to Russia when he realized that the block had a

disfiguring gray vein along the left side of the face, from the

o

shoulder to the top of the head. Art enthusiasts tended to favor

very white marble.

Houdon's sculpture reproduces the classical style of truncation that Pajou used in 1773 but shows Buffon with curled

hair. A visitor noted in 1785: "I find the bust of him by Houdon

2. Houdon, GeorgesLouis Leclerc, Comte

de Buffon, 1781,

plaster, Staatliche

Museum, Schwerín.

178

marble
complete truth that genius sparkled in his eyes." Houdon

shows Buffon here as if he were speaking. He may have

also been trying to evoke Buffon's myopia: "The weakness of

his sight, which, in not allowing him to make anything out,

prevented him from fixing his gaze, gave his discourse an

imposingly prophetic and inspirational aspect." Brière subtly

noted the difference between Houdon's portrait and Paj ou's

(fig. i): "There is more delicacy, penetration, and fidelity in

Houdon, and a tendency toward the imposing, the theatrical,

in Pajou: Houdon sees the man, and Pajou wants us to perceive

the genius."16

As with his portraits of Voltaire, Rousseau, and d'Alembert,

Houdon wanted to offer an alternative version of this bust. Thus

beginning in 1781, while keeping the same head, he added a

half-open shirt. This more contemporary style was preferred

by the princes of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (fig. 2) and Henry of

Prussia. It is also recognizable in the paintings Boilly did of

Houdon's studio (see cat. 66).

The reduction of the bust that Houdon exhibited at the Salon

of 1789 was part of his commercial strategy. In his mémoire to

Bachelier in 1794 he reported that since the Revolution he had

cast several busts, including the Buffon; and he continued to

sell them under the Empire. In April 1804 Dominique-Vivant

Denon informed the minister of the interior that Houdon

possessed busts of Voltaire, Buffon, and Franklin, which the

agriculture society of Ambert wanted to erect in its hall: "he

sells them for 72 francs apiece for the heads alone, and for

96 francs if you want them with the shoulders." One might

call this the democratization of the "Great Men."

GUILHE M SCHERF

Signature on cat. 28

PROVENANC E

Presumably the bronze in Houdon's studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795, no. 69:

"Figures et bustes en bronze. Par le citoyen Houdon Le buste de Buffon

posé sur piédouche en marbre. Haut, totale 22 pouces [59.4 cm]." Probably in collection of Nicolas Demidoff; sale of his son Anatole Demidoff,

Paris, 8-13 Apr. 1839, 27, no. 309: "Buffon par Houdon, beau buste en

bronze"; see Anatole Demidoff, Prince of San Donato, 1812-70 [exh. cat, The

Wallace Collection] (London 1994), 9,115. Acquired by James de Pourtalès

and given the same year to the library of the city of Neuchâtel; then transferred to the museum.

REFERENCE S

Délerot and Legrelle 1857,181; Brière 1913, 354-357, ill.; Versailles 1928,

18, under no. 4; Franck Bourdier, "Buffon d'après ses portraits," in Buffon

(Paris, 1952), 176, pi. 19; Réau 1964, 1:365-366, 2:27, no. 94; Arnason

1975,114 n. 164.

RELATE D WORK S

Nude versions

Marbles

The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (inv. H ck. 225); H. 53 cm, W.

33 cm; inscribed: "HOUDON. F. 1782"; commissioned by Catherine II and

completed in 1782 (Réau 1932,112-114,119,123); included on Houdon's

autograph list (ca. 1784) under the year 1782: "Une tête à l'antique de Mr le

comte de Buffon, en marbre, envoyée à l'impératrice de Russie" (Vitry 1907^

207, no. loi). See also Réau 1917, 148-150, ill.; Z. Zaretskaïa and Nina

Kosareva, La Sculpture française des XVHe-XXe siècles au musée de l'Ermitage

(Leningrad, 1963), 162, nos. 66 and 67, ill.; Z. Zaretskaïa and Nina Kosareva,

La Sculpture de l'Europe occidentale à l'Ermitage (Leningrad, 1970), no. 129,

ill.; and Nina Kosareva, "Masterpieces of Eighteenth-Century French Sculpture," Apollo (June 1975), 448-449, fig. n.

Musée du Louvre, Paris, bequest of Jacques-Edouard Gatteaux, 1881

(inv. RF 379); H. 46.5 (with base: 64.5 cm), W. 28.9 cm, D. 29.1 cm; inscribed

on truncation of right shoulder: "houdon f." Most likely the bust in the Salon

of 1783, no. 248: "Buste de M. le Comte de Buffon; il a été exécuté en

marbre aux frais de S.M. l'Impératrice de toutes les Russies." Houdon's

studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795, no. 77 (H. 59.4 cm); [Gontau] sale, 29 July 1796,

no. 38; shown at both Versailles 1928, no. 4; and Paris 1928, no. 9. Réau

179

ENLIGHTENMENT FIDURES
Back view of cat. 28

1964,2:27, calls it "probably a work of the studio, executed by an assistant,"

but Arnason 1975, 114 n. 164, sees it as an autograph piece, as does the

present author. See also Louvre cat. 1998, 423, ill.

Plasters

Shown Dec. 1784 at the Société des Beaux-Arts, Montpellier (no. 157), loaned

by Abraham Fontanel, director and curator of the society's collections: "Le

buste de M. le comte de Buffon. Morceau reparé par l'artiste lui-même"

[version "à l'antique"?]. See Claparède (éd. 1993), 45-46.

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (inv. 3985); H. (with base) 63 cm, W. 31

cm, D. 26 cm; cachet de l'atelier on back; acquired in Paris in 1951. Considered the original plaster model for the Hermitage marble in Réau 1923;

Pierre Quarré, "Sur un buste de Buffon au Musée de Dijon," Annales de

Bourgogne 30, no. 2 (Apr.-June 1958), 134; and Réau 1964, 2:27. Arnason

1975,114 n. 164, agrees the bust is of high quality but not necessarily the

original model. See also Montagu 1966, pi. 8; and Dijon and Orléans 1992,

66, no. 25, ill.

Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris; H. 53 cm; inscribed:

"Houdon F." See Marthe Digard, "Quelques œuvres d'art du Museum

d'histoire naturelle depuis la Révolution," BSHAF (1936), 163-164, for

its prerevolutionary provenance.

Private Collection, New York; tinted plaster; cachet de l'atelier on back,

with annotation in ink: "Georges, Louis, Le Clerc, Comte de Buffon, il m'a

fait cadot de ce buste quelques mois avant sa mort arrivée à Paris" (now

fragmentary); undoubtedly from Jules Strauss collection (Paris 1928, no.

10; Paris sale, 27 May 1949). See Houdon: An Exhibition of Sculpture from

the Collection of Michael Hall, Esq. [exh. cat., Salander-O'Reilly Galleries] (New

York, 1998), 50-53, no. 14, ill.

Musée Dumont, Semur-en-Auxois, acquired between 1854 and 1885

(on loan to the Musée Buffon, Montbard); painted terracotta color; H. 60 cm;

inscribed: "Houdon f. 1782"; cachet de l'atelier on back. See J. Pontefract,

"Inventaire des collections de sculptures modernes et de peintures du musée

de Semur-en-Auxois" (master's thesis, Université de Dijon, 1970-1971),

1:329; and Buffon en sculpture du XVIIIe au XXe siècle, by Hélène Tromparent [exh. cat., Musée Buffon] (Montbard, 1998), no. 4, ill.

Formerly Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC;

tinted plaster; inscribed: "Houdon f / 1782"; cachet de l'atelier on back; from

the New York art market, 1966; sale, Christie's, New York, i Nov. 1989,

no. 58, ill.

Modern castings of the Louvre marble distributed by the museum's

workshop beginning in 1908 (Rionnet 1996,266, no. 1120) and by the publisher Lorenzi (copy at the Musée Frédéric Blandin de Nevers, inv. NS 137).

Terracotta

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (inv. 1936.5); H. 59.7 cm; inscribed on

front, below truncation: "houdon.f.i782"; sale, Sussman, Paris, May 1922,

no. 65, ill. (cachet de l'atelier present). See Worcester 1964, 74-76, ill.;

Washington 1976, 67, no. 116, ill.

Variants with open shirt

Plasters

Posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio, 15-17 Dec. 1828, no. 24;

sold for 9 francs along with the plasters of Jean Le Rond d'Alembert and

Robert Fulton (Gandouin 1893-1907, 29).

Staatiiches Museum, Schwerin (inv. Pi. 274), painted terracotta color; H.

63 cm; inscribed on truncation of right arm: "houdon £1781"; cachet de

l'atelier on back; acquired from Houdon in 1782, soon after the crown princes

of Mecklenburg-Schwerin visited Paris. See Schwerin 2000,186, no. 9, ill.

Stittung Preufèische Schlôsser und Garten, Potsdam-Sanssouci, Skulpturensammlung (inv. 123); painted terracotta color; H. (with base) 61 cm;

inscribed "houdon: f 1781"; acquired from Houdon by Prince Henry of

Prussia. See Bildhauerkunst des 18. Jahrhunderts in Potsdam, by Saskia

Hüneke [exh. cat., Orangerie im Neuen Garten] (Potsdam, 1983), 53, ill. p.

55, no. 43; Rheinsberg 1985, no. 100; Rheinsberg 2002, no. VII. 49.

Château de Coppet, Switzerland; painted terracotta color (or terracotta?).

No indication of provenance among papers at Coppet (the author wishes to

thank the comte d'Haussonville for his help), but a strong friendship existed

between Buffon and Mme Necker. Réau 1964, 2:27, gives as provenance the

A. Lazard collection, Paris.

Museum and Art Galleries, Glasgow; bronzed plaster; H. 61 cm;

inscribed: "houdon"; cachet de l'atelier on back. See Arnason 1975, fig. 135.

Stone

Reubell sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 7-8 Feb. 1934, no. 185, ill.; H. 53 cm.

Château de Montaigu, Nancy (annex to the Musée Lorrain); from the

Edouard Salin collection; base different from that in Reubell sale.

Bronze

Houdon cast busts of Buffon and other luminaries after the Revolution, but

it is not known which formats he used (mémoire to Bachelier, n Oct. 1794).

Boilly paintings

Bust depicted in Boilly's canvases of Houdon in His Studio (cat. 66), on shelf

at right between busts of Benjamin Franklin and Sophie Arnould.

180
ENLIGHTENMEN T FIGURE S

Reductions

Paris, Salon cat. 1789 (no. 248): "Tête en marbre de petite proportion."

Collection of the Honorable Irvin Laughlin, Washington, DC, marble

(Paris 1928, 29). Bourdier 1952,177, cites this as well as one in the Grandidier collection as "appearing to be mediocre works of the studio."

Prints

Print inspired by variant with open shirt, inscribed: "Buffon / Dessiné d'après

le Buste de Houdon par Delafontaine / Gravé par Dupréel," BNEst (N2,

microfilm D 100663).

Subject shown in French dress, with cravat and lace frill, not corresponding to types conceived by Houdon; inscribed: "Le comte de Buffon /

de l'Académie Française / dessiné par Bounieu d'après le buste de M.

Houdon / gravé par Hubert," BNEst (N2, microfilm D 100643).

1. On Buffon, see Jacques Roger, Buffon, un philosophe

au Jardin du Roi (Paris, 1989); and James David Draper

in Paris and New York 1997-1998, 275-298.

2. Montbard 1998, fig. i.

3. Louvre cat. 1998, 507, ill.

4. According to the terms of Pajou's report; see FurcyRaynaud 1927, 239. On this key statue, see Draper in

Paris and New York 1997-1998, 280-289, ill5. Bourdier 1952 cites a fairly large number of busts

after or inspired by Houdon's. For most of them, their

quality and their current locations are problematic.

6. For letters between Grimm and Catherine II see

Réau 1932,71,112-114,

 H9> and 123.

7. Buffon 1860,113.

8. The author wishes to thank Jean-René Gaborit for

this observation. Despite flaws in the marble, the

Louvre bust is very finished in its execution, with the

fine regular striations on the back that characterize

other finished marbles by Houdon. This supports

the hypothesis that this was the bust exhibited at the

Salon of 1783.

9. Mémoires secrets (London, 1782), 17:199, praises the

"dazzling whiteness" of the marble Diana, whereas

Lettre d'Artiomphile à Madame Mérard de Saint-Just sur

l'exposition au Louvre en 1781 (Deloynes XII, no. 277;

MacWilliam 1991, 321) criticizes the Seated Voltaire

because of flaws in the marble. See also the two busts

of Cagliostro (cat. 14).

10. Hérault de Séchelles, Voyage à Montbard

(Paris, 1890), 5.

11. Brière 1913, 354.

12. Lettre aux auteurs du Journal de Paris (Deloynes

XIII, no. 312).

13. Vigée-Lebrun 1984, 2:245. She met Buffon in 1785.

14. Draper in Paris and New York, 1997-1998, 291.

15. Comte d'Angiviller, quoted in Roger Saban, "Le

Testament de Buffon," in Buffon 88, actes du colloque

international pour le bicentenaire de la mort de

Buffon... (Paris, 1992), 100.

16. Brière 1913, 357.

17. Vivant Denon (éd. 1999), 1999, 2:166, letter of

3 Apr. 1804.

181

* Antoine Louis (1723-1792)

Dated 1782

White marble on marble base

H. 66 cm (with base: 82 cm), W. 70 cm, D. 36 cm

Inscribed under right shoulder: HOUDON, F. 1782

Musée de l'histoire de la médecine, Paris (inv. NL 205)

Antoine Louis was born in Metz, the son of a military surgeon.

After studying with the Jesuits, he served in the army. Then in

1743 he went to Paris, where he became an associate surgeon

attached to the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière from 1744 to 1749 and

won the friendship of the celebrated surgeon François Gigot de

La Peyronie. In 1745 he was awarded the annual prize of the

Académie de chirurgie; in 1746 he was elected an associate

member; in 1750 he was made a full member of the academy.

Recommended to Diderot by La Peyronie in 1747, he was one

of the first encylopédistes and wrote more than 475 articles for

the Encyclopédie on subjects related to anatomy, surgery, and

the art of medicine. Diderot personally knew and respected

him. In 1757 Louis became a professor of physiology at the Collège de chirurgie, where he remained for forty years and delivered many historic lectures. He also taught at the Hôpital de la

Charité between 1757 and 1761, but internal quarrels led him

to abandon the hospital and join the armies of the Seven Years

War. In 1764 he was elected secretary for life of the Académie

de chirurgie, then in 1769 he became a lawyer, receiving a

doctorate from the Faculté de droit, Paris. His qualifications as

a medical jurist would lead him to collaborate with Voltaire in the

Calas and Sirven affairs. In addition to his contributions to the

Encyclopédie, he wrote a considerable number of works in his

discipline, including the famous Dictionnaire de chirurgie in 1772.

Louis was less productive in the 17805, as his aggressive,

polemical, sarcastic personality worked against him. He "was

generally regarded by the surgeons and by most of his colleagues

as a rigid faultfinder for whom they felt more respect than

friendship. He was criticized with good reason for not having

the kindness, the indulgence, that casts a veil over the imperfections of men, which there is never any advantage to lifting."

After 1774 he refused to publish the academy's reports and did

not compose the articles attributed to him in the Encyclopédie

méthodique. He was arrogant and grew to be a bitter old man,

though honored by flattering visits from the Austrian emperor

Joseph II and Benjamin Franklin. In 1792, in the interest of

making executions more humane, he, with the help of a German harp manufacturer named Schmitt, perfected the machine

that was first called the "Louison," and later the "guillotine."

An important personage, Louis was portrayed several times.

An early plaster bust by Jean-Jacques Cafrleri, signed and dated

1748, already showed the surgeon's physical characteristics:

high forehead, arched eyebrows, large nose, deep creases on

either side of a fleshy mouth, and heavy chin. A profile portrait

183

29
i. Anonymous, Antoine Louis, 17805, terracotta, Musée de la Révolution

française, Vizille.

2. Cathelin, Antoine

Louis, 1789, engraving

after Jean-Baptiste

Greuze, BNEst.

medallion by Jean-Siméon Chardin in 1757 still projected a

youthful and sober image. A terracotta bust recently acquired

by the museum in Vizille (fig. i) is closer to Houdon's portrait.

That work is composed in an almost identical manner: the

sitter wears the same open robe with the edges folded back, a

wide belt, and the same wig tightly hugging the head; the face

is heavy, the chin fat. Only the eyes are different. In Houdon's

bust the iris is characteristically carved into a deep bowl, with a

deeper indentation in the center to animate the pupil; in the

other there is only a slight notch in the center of the barely

incised iris. The expression on the face thus differs significantly.

In Houdon's portrait Louis has a searching look, whereas in the

other he radiates the benevolence of a distinguished, well-fed

citizen. The painting by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (see fig. 2) is quite

different—with Louis writing and in French costume—but the

oblique gaze comes from Houdon (whom the painter knew well

from the Loge des Neuf Soeurs, where they sat side by side).

Sculpted portraits of surgeons in the eighteenth century did

not follow a single formula. In three busts by Jean-Baptiste II

Lemoyne—those of La Peyronie in 1748 and Germain Pichaut

de La Martinière in 1759 (both Ecole de médecine, Paris) and

that of Claude-Nicolas Lecat, ca. 1743 (Musée des Beaux-Arts,

Rouen) —the sitters wear French suits, as also in Augustin

Pajou's 1779 terracotta of Jean-Baptiste Andouillé (Private Collection). In contrast, Jean-Baptiste Pigalle was more interested

in the human presence of his subjects and lingered on facial

expression rather than representing a precise costume in his

busts of Antoine Ferrein in 1771 (Musée de l'histoire de la

médecine, Paris) and Georges-Martin Guérin in ca. 1775 (Musée

du Louvre, Paris).

Houdon's portrait of Louis is different. It shows the surgeon dressed in the ceremonial robe of a professor and doctor

of law, with the hood visible on the left shoulder. That symbol

of his high position as well as the form of the collar and the

large knotted belt are almost identical in Houdon's busts of

magistrates like Miromesnil in 1777 and Aymard Jean de Nicolay in 1779 (see cat. 30 and its fig. i). Louis was thus represented

by Houdon, probably at his own request, as a professor and

eminent jurist, a distinction befitting his credentials. That

iconography set him apart from depictions of his medical colleagues, which probably did not displease him.

Houdon admirably captured the qualities of his subject's

impulsive temperament. The eyes emit a caustic look, the

nostrils are dilated, the lips slightly open, the neck as thick as

a bull's. The wig, forming a large mass, is fully sculpted in

184
ENLIGHTENMEN T FIGURE S

back with regular marks made by a fine drilling tool, while the

back of the torso, hollowed out with a slight central support, is

finished with striations. The marble is white, except for a few

dark inclusions on the face. Only a few tool marks are visible,

especially on the details of the costume, which is superbly carved

(in particular, the magnificent knot of the belt—a piece of pure,

almost abstract sculpture). Louis must have liked the bust, for

he considered donating it to the Académie de chirurgie in 1788.

His general interest in sculpture is well documented, moreover:

he commissioned busts of prominent men of Metz and gave

them to the municipality. Why did he not do the same for his

own portrait bust? Perhaps he thought that a work by Houdon

deserved to remain in the capital or that his status as an illustrious man of Metz should be displayed in Paris.

GUILHE M SCHERF

Signature on cat. 29

PROVENANC E

Included on Houdon's autograph list of works (ca. 1784) under the year

1782: "Un buste en marbre de Mr Louis, secrétaire de l'académie de chirurgie

pour y être placé" (Vitry 1907^ 207, no. 100). In his testament of 24 May

1788 the sitter, who was unmarried, bequeathed the bust to the Académie

de chirurgie; he rescinded the bequest in a new testament of 13 May 1792.

According to Dubois 1859, xxxiv: "si l'Académie jugeait que son buste en

marbre méritât cet honneur, il voulait qu'on le livrât à l'Académie; en 1792,

il n'est plus question de cette disposition, et si l'Académie de médecine possède aujourd'hui ce morceau précieux, dû au ciseau de Houdon, c'est qu'elle

Ta acheté à beaux deniers comptants de Sédillot." On 31 May 1792 thé

students of the Ecole de chirurgie requested without success that the bust

be installed in their lecture hall (records of the Académie de chirurgie, at

the library of the Académie nationale de médecine; MS 26 [26]).

EXHIBITION S

Paris, Salon cat. 1783, no. 245; Versailles 1928,26, no. 29; Paris 1928,52, no.

47; Paris 1937, no. 1044.

REFERENCE S

Pahin de la Blancherie in Nouvelles de la République des lettres et des arts,

4 Dec. 1782, 277, no. XXXV; Délerot and Legrelle 1857, 117, 181; E.-Fréd.

Dubois, éd., Eloges lus dans ks séances publiques de l'Académie royale de chirurgie

de 1750 à 3792 par A. Louis (Paris,1859), xxxiv; Legrand 1911, 165-166, pi.

75; Vitry 19283,12; Vitry 1928^ ill. p. 59; Réau 19283, 343, ill; Giacometti

1929, 2:110-111; Vitry 19373, no. 33, pi. 33; Réau 1964,1:343-344, 2:36, no.

152, pi. 75; Arnason 1975, 64, fig. 134, pi. 72 (détail).

RELATE D WORK S

Musée de l'histoire de la médecine, Paris, anonymous marble reduction;

see Legrand 1911,165-166.

Musée Lambinet, Versailles, plaster cast.

Engraving by Miger, dated 1766, after lost painting by Jean-Simeon

Chardin exhibited at the Salon of 1757, BNEst (N2, microfilm D 198398).

Engraving of 1789 by Cathelin after Jean-Baptiste Greuze (Musée des

Beaux-Arts, Metz), BNEst (N2, microfilm D 198392). See Georges Wildenstein, "Un Greuze inconnu," Beaux-Arts 4 (1931), 5, ill.

1. Kafker and Kafker 1988, 231-235.

2. Paul Sue in Dubois 1859,448.

3. "Un peu gâté par l'adulation qu'il aimait, Louis

était très sensible aux témoignages ostensibles de sa

capacité" (Sue in Dubois 1859,447).

4 6. Inv. MRP 2001-14; H. 75 cm, W. 56 cm, D. 35 cm;. See Cécile Navarra- Le Bihan, "L'Inventaire après

décès du sculpteur Jean-Jacques Caffieri," GBA (2001), without inscription.

119 n. 16.

7. Sue in Dubois 1859, 442-

5. See Pierre Rosenberg, Tout l'œuvre peint de Chardin

(Paris, 1983), loi, 104, ill., including a portrait Chardin

had already done of the surgeon André Levret.

185

* Armand-Thomas Hue,

Marquis de Miromesnil (1723-1796)

Dated 1777

White marble with small gray inclusions on separate square light gray marble base

H. 65.3 cm (with base: 83.5 cm), W. 66.3 cm

Inscribed across the back edge of truncation: A. T. HUE. ¡MARQUIS] DE MIROMENIL, FAIT PAR HOUDON EN 1777

The Frick Collection, New York (inv. 1935.2.78)

In the Salon of 1775 Houdon, who was thirty-four and still only

a candidate for membership in the Académie royale, exhibited

a remarkable group of sculptures: a statue of a Bather, a model

for the tomb of Duchess Louise Dorothea of Saxe-Gotha, and a

number of very fine portrait busts, including those of Sophie

Arnould and Christoph Willibald Gluck (cats. 8-10) and of the

minister of finance, Jacques Turgot, and the recently appointed

minister of justice, the marquis de Miromesnil. Although

Houdon had exhibited portraits in the Salons of 1771 and 1773,

it was in 1775 that he first showed an array of the great figures

of the day and established himself as one of the most accomplished portrait sculptors in Europe. Bachaumont recognized

the extraordinary talent of Houdon in the portrayals of Turgot

and Miromesnil: "I come back to the expressions of the heads

that I admire especially. For, along with that quality of eminence

and look of beneficence and humanity that I notice, aside from

the truthfulness of the features that make them recognizable

at the first glance, I find there the refinements of genius of

which more vulgar artists never even dream."

From a distinguished Norman family that had been ennobled in the sixteenth century, Armand-Thomas Hue de

Miromesnil was born near Orléans in 1723. He served as first

president of the parlement of Rouen from 1757 until 1771, when

the parements were dissolved. In 1774 Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux,

comte de Maurepas, suggested to the new king, Louis XVI, that

Miromesnil be appointed garde des sceaux, or minister of justice. On 24 August 1774 Miromesnil received the seals of that

powerful office from the king, a post he retained until his resignation in 1787. Regarded as a loyal, energetic, and honest

minister who carried out his duties skillfully and with moderation, he was awarded the prestigious Order of Saint-Esprit in

1781. Following his service to the king, he retired to his château

de Miromesnil near Dieppe, where he became involved in local

cultural and historical activities, especially the Académie de

Rouen. At the time of the Revolution he was arrested and briefly

imprisoned in Paris in 1794. Upon his release he returned to

his property in Normandy, where he died in 1796.

The marble portrait of Miromesnil now in the Victoria and

Albert Museum, signed and dated 1775 (see Related Works), is

probably the one exhibited in the Salon of that year. Houdon

executed a second marble portrait of Miromesnil, now in the

Frick Collection, signed and dated 1777, which is virtually identical to the earlier one, except that it does not have the broken

nose and the deep fissure in the marble at the left shoulder.

30

i87
Both portraits were executed at the apogee of Miromesnil's political career, shortly after he was named minister of justice.

Representing him to the waist, the sculptor has given great

importance to the magisterial robes and wig of the sitter. This

work recalls some of the seventeenth-century busts by Gian

Lorenzo Bernini and Alessandro Algardi that Houdon had

seen in Rome, not only in its half-length truncation but in the

attention lavished on the textures of the pleats of the robe, the

buttons, the sash and superbly carved bow, and the fine hemmed

collar at his neck. This is the first time Houdon used this

format, and it is one to which he returned for portraits of other

prominent political figures such as Aymard-Jean de Nicolay in

1779 (fig. i) and Antoine Louis in 1782 (cat. 29). The wig is a

tour de force of carving, conveying in an abstract style the thick,

lifeless mass of powdered hair, which serves as a foil for the great

refinement and sensitivity seen in the modeling of the face. The

backs of both busts of Miromesnil are beautifully finished—

hollowed out on either side of a central post of support with the

surface covered in delicately chiseled striations. Both busts bear

an elaborate inscription that includes the name of the sitter, his

title, Houdon's name, and the date. On the Frick bust the word

"Marquis" was effaced, probably at the time of the Revolution.

2. Jean-Louis Anselin,

A. T. Hue, Mr de

Miromenil, 1791,

engraving, BNEst.

i. Houdon, Aymard-Jean de Nicolay, 1779, white marble, Kimbell Art

Museum, Fort Worth.

Bachaumont gives an interesting description of the bust in

his review: "M. de Miromesnil is a very good likeness, but heavily dressed; his magistrate's cassock has those stiff and hard

pleats that art should carefully avoid, and the wig especially

is of an enormous volume; it is a huge block of marble by which

he is crushed and that is not yet finished. It is true that that

ornament is entirely unattractive... .1 see in the Garde des Sceaux

the profound composure, the scrupulous and vigilant exactitude of the man to whom the laws have been entrusted, whose

function is only to conserve, to maintain, or to reinforce."

Houdon has been able to reveal the inner character of his

sitter as well as his appearance, a skill that sets him apart from

most other portrait sculptors. The notable achievement of the

sculptor is that, while giving great weight to the costume and the

status it represents, the sitter's individual personality shines

through and dominates the work.

Although it is known that Houdon did some portraits on

his own initiative, this is unlikely to have been the case with the

Miromesnil. The fact that he exhibited a marble at the Salon of

1775, a large and expensive work depicting a man who had only

recently been raised to a position of prominence, suggests that

it was a commission, probably from the sitter who wished to

commemorate his appointment as minister of justice. It is possible that Houdon kept the 1775 bust in his studio because of the

188
ENLIGHTENMEN T FIGURE S

Back view of cat. 30

broken nose and the imperfection in the marble and that that is

the bust sold after the sculptor's death. He then created the present work in flawless marble, which was acquired by Miromesnil

and remained in his family until the early twentieth century.

Houdon executed a third marble, now in Montpellier (see Related

Works), which repeats the same basic format but includes the

cross of the Order of Saint-Esprit on a ribbon around the sitter's

neck and embroidered on his robe (now effaced). Miromesnil

received this award in February 1781, providing a date after which

this third bust must have been executed. The identification of

the decoration is confirmed by an engraving dated 1791, done

by Jean-Louis Anselin after Houdon's bust (fig. 2).

ANN E L. POULET

PROVENANC E

Probably commissioned by Miromesnil or a member of his family. Miromesnil's eldest daughter, Anne-Angelique-Armand-Georgette (1751-1828), who

in 1769 married Paul-Charles Cardin le Bret (1748-1804), inherited the

château de Miromesnil and its contents (AN, 512. AP. 8, "La Succession de

Armand Thomas Hue de Miromesnil décédé le 18 messidor an IV" [6 July

1796]). According to Jean-Benôit-Désiré Cochet, Les Eglises de l'arrondissement d'Yvetot (Paris, 1852), 1:229, Mme Lebret installed the bust at the château

de Bretteville (Seine Inférieure): "Marquis de Miromesnil, garde-des-sceaux

de Louis XVI, dont le salon conserve un buste en marbre blanc, fait en 1777,

par Houdon, l'un des plus habiles sculpteurs du siècle dernier. La figure, en

albâtre, est d'une beauté ravissante. Ce portrait a été déposé ici par Mme

Lebret, fille de l'illustre chancelier, morte à Bretteville en 1828"; it is listed

in an unpublished inventory of the château de Bretteville in Dec. 1856:

"Salon.. .buste, l'un en marbre blanc" (AN, Fonds Miromesnil, 512 AP-42,

p. 4). She left her entire fortune (including the bust) to a descendant of

Miromesnil's younger brother, Antoine-Guillaume-François de la Motte

Ango (1776-1832), the marquis de Fiers; the bust was inherited by Marie

Armand, marquis de Fiers; then by his nephew, Henri de Courtivron; it was

acquired by Wildenstein, Paris, by 1913 (Brière 1913, 351); sold to Ledyard

Blair, New York, 5 May 1919, for $120,000 (Gimpel 1963, 118); and purchased by The Frick Collection in April 1935.

EXHIBITION S

New York 1981, no. 5.

REFERENCE S

Adolphe Joanne, Itinéraire general de la France. Normandie (Paris, 1866),

148; Vitry i9O7b, 201, under 1777, no. 50: "Le buste de marbre de Mr de

Miroménil, garde des sceaux de France"; see also 198, under no. 25: "Médaillon de Mad. de Miroménil"; Lami 1910-1911,415; Brière 1913,351; Giacometti

1918-1919, 2:275-276; Giacometti 1929, 2:116; The Frick Collection Catalogue (New York, 1955), 12:102-103; Hodgkinson 1970,120-126, ill.; Réau

1964,1:325-327; 2:37-38, no. 163, pi. LXXV, 1636; Arnason 1975, 31-32,

fig. 81, pi. 22; Eric Gibson, "Jean-Antoine Houdon's Armand-Thomas Hue,

Marquis de Miromesnil," Sculpture 13, no. 2 (Mar.-Apr. 1994), 40-41, ill.

RELATE D WORK S

Documented versions

Paris, Salon cat. 1775, no. 253: "Le buste de M. le Marquis de Miromesnil,

Garde des Sceaux."

Posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio, Paris, 15-17 Dec. 1828,

17, no. 32: "Marbre blanc. Buste de Hue de Mirosmenil, garde-des-sceaux,

mort le 6 juillet 1793 [sic]"; sold for 81 francs (Réau 1964,1:119).

Extant versions

Marbles

Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. A 19-1963); H. 67.6 cm (with

base: 87.16 cm); inscribed at back edge of truncation: "A. T. HUE MARQUIS

DE MIROMENIL GARDE DE SCEAUX. HOUDON. F. 1775"; probably in

Salon of 1775, no. 253; Paris art market, 1898, as from the Goulaine family

in Normandy; E. Lowengard, Paris, 1906; Vanderbilt collection, Paris; private collection, Connecticut; Parke-Bernet sale, New York, 9-10 Feb. 1951,

no. 311; Baron Cassel van Doom sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 9-10 Dec.

1955, 90, no. 272; purchased by the museum from the René Fribourg collection sale, Sotheby's, 17-18 Oct. 1963, no. 773. See Terence W.I. Hodgkinson, "French Eighteenth-Century Portrait Sculptures in the Victoria and

Albert Museum," Victoria and Albert Museum Yearbook, no. 3 (London, 1972),

106-108,115 nn.i2-i4, ill.; and Paul Williamson, éd., European Sculpture

at the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1996), 165, ill.

Musée Fabre, Montpellier (inv. 895.7.64); H. 69 cm (with base: 84.5

cm), W. 63 cm, D. 35 cm; not inscribed. Although beautifully carved, this

bust has suffered from overcleaning and a broken and badly repaired nose.

189
Bequeathed to the museum by Mme Bouisson-Bertrand in 1893. See Bajou

1989, 23-25, ill.

Plaster

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans (inv. 1688); H. 65 cm (with base: 80 cm), W.

62 cm; painted to resemble verdigris bronze. This plaster, which is very dose

in its details to the marble busts of 1775 and 1777, though unsigned and

undated, was acquired by the distinguished artist and amateur from Orléans,

Aignan-Thomas Desfriches (1715-1800), a friend of Miromesnil. At the

dissolution of the parlements in 1771 Miromesnil was in financial straits and

returned to his native city of Orléans. Desfriches befriended him and helped

him financially, which Miromesnil never forgot. Over the years Desfriches

gave Miromesnil a number of his drawings, and Miromesnil probably

reciprocated by giving Desfriches a plaster cast of his bust by Houdon. The

bust was a gift to the museum from Mme de Limay, née Desfriches, in 1825.

See Cuénin 1997,112-113,15

I

»

 I^4> 296 n. 64, 302 n. 43; and Dijon and

Orléans 1992, 80, no. 6, ill.

Signature on cat. 30 (composite photograph)

1. Bachaumont 1780, 214, letter 3, 29 Sept. 1775.

2. For a biography of Miromesnil see Jean-BenoitDésiré Cochet, Galerie dieppoise. Notices biographiques

sur ks hommes célèbres ou utiles de Dieppe... (Dieppe,

1862), 239-242; and Tribout de Morembert, "Hue de

Miromesnil," Dictionnaire de Biographie française

(Paris, 1989), 17:1418-1419.

3. Bachaumont 1780, 214, letter 3.

4. Houdon's posthumous sale, Paris, 15-17 Dec. 1828,

no. 32.

190
3

1

Mme Paul-Louis Girardot de Vermenoux,

née Anne-Germaine Larrivée (1739-1783)

Dated 1777

White Carrara marble with gray inclusions

H. (with self-base) 99.57 cm, W. 59.69 cm.

Inscribed on proper right side of counterbase: A. HOUDON / FECIT AN. / 1777

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens (inv. 27.97)

The identity of the sitter in this magnificent marble portrait

bust has been widely discussed and debated in the Houdon

literature. The sculpture is signed and dated 1777 and was shown

by Houdon at the Salon of that year (no. 242) as "Portrait de

Madame de ***." That bust can be identified with the present

marble by a sketch Gabriel de Saint-Aubin made of it in the

margin of his copy of the Salon catalogue (fig. i). The unusually

large size of the bust, with the base carved from the same piece

of marble, the baroque swag of drapery that wraps around the

sitter's shoulders as well as the base, the elaborate hairstyle and

beautifully rendered features of the woman and her costume

have all led to the assumption that she was an important

personage, and a variety of proposals have been put forward as

to her identity. Giacometti first suggested it was Mme du Barry,

but later proposed that it was Mme de la Houze, second wife of

the ambassador to Denmark. The latter was repeated by Réau

and by Arnason, but without convincing documentation. Far

more persuasive is the identification of the sitter as Mme PaulLouis Girardot de Vermenoux, first made by Girod de l'Ain in

1956. This proposal has been clouded by the fact that the same

identification was given to a marble bust of doubtful authenticity in the collection of Edouard de Callatay in Brussels.

The ravishingly beautiful Anne-Germaine Larrivée, born

in Sedan in northeastern France in 1739, married Paul-Louis

Girardot de Vermenoux from Geneva on 10 February 1756,

when she was seventeen. Her husband died two years later,

leaving her a wealthy widow with an infant son. Through her

husband's family, Mme de Vermenoux became part of the world

of Swiss Protestant bankers in Paris. Her brother-in-law Jean

Girardot de Marigny was a banker, a partner of Jacques Necker

(see cat. 32), and an art collector who became one of Houdon's

most important patrons (see cats. 35, 37, 41). Her sister-in-law

Marie-Jeanne Girardot de Vermenoux married the powerful

Swiss banker Georges Tobie de Thellusson.

Many men were captivated by Mme de Vermenoux's beauty,

her culture, her charm, and her noble character, among them

Necker, Marmontel, and the abbé Raynal. She was in fragile

health for several years after her husband's death, however, and

went to Geneva where she was treated by the famous physician

Théodore Tronchin, who grew extremely fond of her and introduced her to members of the Enlightenment circle around him.

To thank him for his care she commissioned Jean-Etienne

Liotard to do a portrait of her rendering homage to a bust

of Aesculapis, the Greek god of medicine and an allusion to

191

i. Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, drawing of Portrait of Madame de *** in Salon

catalogue 0/1777 (détail), BNEst.

2. Jean-Etienne Liotard, Anne-Germaine Larrivée de Vermenoux, 1764,

pastel on paper, inscribed "Anne Germaine de Vermenoux donné par elle / à

Th. Tronchin /]. E. Liotardpinxit," Collection ofX. Givaudan, Geneva.

Dr. Tronchin (fig. 2). Although dated 1764, this portrait bears

a striking resemblance to the sitter in the present marble bust

of 1777: in the oval shape of the face; the fine, straight nose,

arched eyebrows, and large expressive eyes; as well as the coiffure, with the hair drawn up on top of the head, arranged in

large, soft, loose curls that fall over the shoulders. Her small

waist, emphasized by the broad sash that appears in both the

pastel and the portrait bust, further confirms that both works

represent Mme de Vermenoux.

Upon her return to Paris, Jacques Necker asked Mme de

Vermenoux to marry him, and when she refused, he married

Suzanne Curchod, her companion and the governess to her

son. The Neckers remained her close friends, and she became

the godmother to their daughter, Germaine, later the famous

Mme de Staël. When Mme de Vermenoux hired the Swiss

writer and intellectual Jacques-Henri Meister to become her

son's teacher, he fell passionately in love with her and was

devoted to her until her death in 1783. She willed him her

heart, which he kept in a metal box and had buried with him

when he died forty-three years later. Meister, who took over

the Correspondance littéraire from Frédéric-Melchior Grimm,

is believed to have entrusted Mme de Vermenoux with the

writing of many music and opera reviews and to have had a

relationship with her similar to that of Grimm and his mistress

Mme d'Epinay.

Houdon was the preferred sculptor of the families of Swiss

Protestant bankers in Paris into which Mme de Vermenoux

married, as well as the group of Enlightenment figures whom

she frequented, so it is not surprising that he executed a portrait of this celebrated beauty. That her portrait was exhibited

anonymously at the Salon of 1777 may have to do with her

unofficial relationship with Meister. In the list of his works

that Houdon compiled about 1784, the year following her death,

he included under the year 1778, "Le Buste en marbre de Mad.

o

la baronne de Vermenon [sic]." Even though the date is wrong

(Houdon often made mistakes in spelling and dating his

works), the bust is almost certainly identical with the present

example. A terracotta "Buste de Mme de Vermenon" is listed

in the studio sale after Houdon's death (see Related Works),

and it is evident that the sitter had Houdon do plaster or

terracotta casts of her portrait to offer as presents to friends

(fig. 3). The Swiss writer Salomon Reverdil was the recipient of

one of these busts, and he wrote an effusive letter of thanks to

Meister, saying that he had installed it in his "cabinet" and sent

a message to his benefactress, "May I be permitted, however,

193

ENLIGHTENMENT FIURES
j. Houdon, Mme

Girardot de Vermenoux, ca. 1777, plaster,

Private Collection.

to cover with kisses and to dampen with tears the hand that

g

offers such a desired and precious gift."

Meister translated the works of the Zurich writer and poet

Salomon Gessner from German into French in 1777. Although

Mme de Vermenoux never met Gessner, she greatly admired his

writing and corresponded with him. In March 1779 she sent

Gessner busts of herself and of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, accompanied by a charming letter: "For a long time I have owed you

an homage of thanks. Permit me to offer it to you by sending

you the bust of a friend who has never had the pleasure of

meeting you, but who owes to you the sweetest moments of

her solitude and who passionately wants to hold a place in your

memory. To be better received she has included the sensitive

philosopher whom you miss as much as she does and for whom

you were the cherished poet."10

ANN E L. POULET

PROVENANC E

Salon cat. 1777, no. 242: "Portrait de Madame de ***"; possibly in sale by

antique dealer Chaudesaigues, Paris, 13 Dec. 1825, no. 30: "Marbre. Buste

fait par Houdon. Madame de Vermenoux"; marquise de Blaisel sale, Paris,

ii Jan. 1850, no. 15: "Un grand et beau buste de femme en marbre blanc.

Signé Houdon 1777. H. i m." (bought in by de Blaisel for 2,200 francs);

marquis de Blaisel sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 25 May 1868, no. i: "Magnifique

buste de jeune femme du temps de Louis XVI. Marbre blanc. Environ i

mètre de hauteur. Oeuvre d'une allure superbe. Signée et datée 1777" (12,700

francs to dealer Miallet); Adolphe de Rothschild (1823-1900); by inheritance to his great-nephew Maurice de Rothschild (1878-1957); bought from

him by Duveen Brothers, Paris, 2 Nov. 1915, for $129,978.66 as portrait of

"La Clairon" (DA, JPGM, box n, f. 100); sent on approval as "Bust of Mile

Clairon" (stock no. 26396) to Henry C. Frick, 21 June 1916, for $225,000.00

(DA, box 452, f. i); returned by Frick to Duveen, 20 Dec. 1919 (DA, box 12,

f. 42; box 452, f. 4); sold as bust of "Baronesse de la Houze" (Duveen, New

York, stock no. 27314) to Mrs. A. Hamilton Rice, for her house at 901 Fifth

Ave., New York, 6 Jan. 1923, for $180,000.00 (DA, box 501, f. 3); returned by

Mrs. Rice to Duveen, New York, 9 Nov. 1926 (DA, box 501, f. 4); sold by Duveen

to Henry E. Huntington, 25 Jan. 1927, for $160,000.00 (DA, box 175, f. i, 3).

REFERENCE S

Vitry i9O7b, 202, no. 57; Lami 1910-1911,1:420; Giacometti 1918-1919,

3:36-54; Giacometti 1929, 2:90-94,197, 201, ill. opp. p. 90; Louis Réau,

"Compléments au catalogue des bustes de Houdon," BSHAF (Paris, 1951),

60-61; Edouard de Callatay, "Les Bustes Genevois de Houdon," Genava,

n.s. 2 (Oct. 1954), 245-251; Gabriel Girod de l'Ain, "Les Thellusson et les

artistes," Genava, n.s. 4 (Geneva, 1956), 146,159-162; Wark 1959, 77-78,

pis. XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XL; Réau 1964,1:96,120,121, 321-322; 2:35,

pi. LXVII; Arnason 1975, 35,109 n. 70, fig. 80, pi. 27; Girod de l'Ain 1977,

113,116-118,138.

RELATE D WORK S

Plaster

Formerly Collection of Countess de Waresquiel, Geneva (see fig. 3); painted

terracotta color; clearly represents the same sitter as the present marble but

in a more truncated form. Probably one of the busts distributed by Mme de

Vermenoux to family and friends (see text above), it is paired in the collection with a plaster bust of Dr. Théodore Tronchin by Houdon. They were

exhibited in Versailles 1928, 31, nos. 43 and 44, as Portrait présumé de M.

Rillet and Portrait présumé de Mme Rillet, loaned by Countess de Waresquiel.

As Girod de l'Ain 1956,158-160, has shown, the de Waresquiel family is

directly related to the Thellusson and Girardot de Vermenoux families.

Signature on cat. 31

194
Terracotta

Buste de Mme de Vermenon [sic], posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's

studio, Paris, 15-17 Dec. 1828,19, no. 57.

Drawing

Gabriel de Saint-Aubin sketched an image of the bust in his copy of the

Salon catalogue of 1777 (see fig. i; and Dacier 1909-1921,4:59, ill.).

Back view of cat. 31

1. Giacometti 1918-1919, 3:36-54; Giacometti 1929,

2:90-94.

2. Réau 1964,1:96, 321-322; 2:35; Arnason 1975, 35.

3. Girod de l'Ain 1956,158-162.

4. See Réau 1951, 61-63; de Callatay 1954, 245-251,

figs. 159-161; and Edouard de Callatay, Madame

de Vennenoux. Une enchanteresse au XVHIe siècle

(Paris, I956),i56-i57, 247 n. 73, fig. 6.

5. The author would like to thank M. Jean-Bénédicte

de Saussure for providing valuable information about

the family of Paul-Louis Girardot de Vermenoux. See

also Herbert Liithy, La Banque protestante en France de

la Révocation de l'Edit de Nantes à la Révolution (Paris,

1959-1961), 2:232-237.

6. For her biography see de Callatay 1956.

7. De Callatay 1956,129-135.

8. Vitry i907b, 202, no. 57.

9. Quoted from a letter of 29 Jan. 1779 in the Meister

Archives, Geneva (de Callatay 1956,157, 247 n. 75).

10. Quoted from a letter of i Mar. 1779 in the

Bibliothèque de Zurich, MS ¥5223 (de Callatay 1956,

159, 247 n. 80).

ENLIGHTEMEN FIGURES

* Jacques Necker (1732-1804)

Dated 1790

White marble with gray veining on white marble base

H. 70 cm (with base: 85.2 cm), W. 65.6 cm

Inscribed on truncation of proper right arm: houdon.fijgo

Musées d'art et d'histoire de la Ville de Genève (inv. 1876-3)

Houdon executed the bust of the powerful financier and

statesman Jacques Necker, along with that of Jean-Sylvain

Bailly (cat. 33), during the first stormy months of the French

Revolution when the sitter was at the height of his popularity.

The circumstances of its commission by the city of Paris in

1789 prove once again Houdon's entrepreneurial talent and

underscore the competitiveness among the Parisian sculptors.

Jacques Necker was a wealthy banker and financial writer

from Geneva who had rapidly risen to importance in Paris

and surfaced as one of the critical figures in the early phase

of the French Revolution. Highly regarded by many for his

intelligence and honesty, he was also characterized as egocentric, arrogant, obstinate, and doctrinaire. The salons held by

his wife, Suzanne, attracted key Enlightenment intellectuals,

such as Diderot, Buffon, and Frédéric-Melchior Grimm, and

exerted significant influence in Paris society. The Neckers'

daughter was the legendary Germanophile woman of letters

and salon hostess Mme de Staël.

In 1777, appointed by Louis XVI to be director general of

finance (he could not hold the title of minister because he was

a Protestant and a foreigner), Necker faced significant political

opposition from his aristocratic enemies at court. At the same

time, he was championed by the philosophes for his ideas

concerning financial reform and constitutional monarchy. The

publication of his famous report "Compte rendu présenté au

Roi," claiming a surplus in the state finances, earned him the

reputation of a financial wizard. Though forced to resign in 1781,

Necker was recalled seven years later as director general of

finances and minister of state in the king's desperate but belated

attempt to rescue France from imminent bankruptcy. After the

summoning of the Estates General in 1789, Necker urged Louis

XVI to accede to some of the demands of the newly proclaimed

National Assembly and openly called for sacrifices by the aristocracy and clergy, acts that elevated him to the status of a hero

in the eyes of the masses. His subsequent dismissal on n July

1789 became one of the driving forces that led to the storming

of the Bastille, the first outbreak of violence and turning point

of the French Revolution. Applauded by the populace, Necker

resumed his duties until finally resigning in 1790 and retreating

to his Swiss château at Coppet, thus —unlike many other

moderate proponents of the Revolution—saving his head.

The decision to honor Necker by placing his sculpted

portrait in the Hôtel de Ville of Paris was made jointly by the

Electoral and Communal Assemblies on 30 July 1789, the day

197

32
i. Houdon, Jacques

Necker, 1789, plaster,

Musée des suisses à

l'étranger, PregnyChambésy (on loan

from the Fondation

Henry Necker).

2. Louis-Simon

Boizot, Jacques

Necker, 1789/1790,

biscuit porcelain,

Sèvres, Mount

Vernon, Virginia.

of his first public appearance in Paris after the fall of the Bastille,

in a general atmosphere of patriotic fervor. At the suggestion

of the city's new mayor, Bailly, the initial idea of a full-length

statue was scaled back to the less imposing bust format, for

which the Electors themselves resolved to pay (along with the

bust of Bailly). This pledge was received with great interest

by artists, who viewed it as an invitation to a competition. The

sculptor Louis-Simon Boizot immediately started working on a

portrait of Necker, presenting a plaster model only one month

later in the Salon of 1789, "made from memory since the return

of this minister to Paris, the 30 July of this year" (see fig. 2).

He submitted a proposal to the mayor and the Commune of

Paris, expressing his patriotic zeal and suggesting a subscription

drive for the acquisition of the bust in marble. While Boizot

was still waiting for an answer, Houdon had the committee of

his district of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule intervene on his own

behalf, resulting in the assembly's decision of 7 September 1789

o

to grant him the commission. The next day Houdon addressed

the Commune of Paris in a typically self-promoting letter that

was made public not only in France but also, in English translation, in the American Columbian Magazine, supposedly communicated by the sculptor himself:

Gentlemen... Permit an artist, full of respect and gratitude for your patriotic virtues, to claim the honor of

assisting you by making the bust of M. Neckar. M.

Houdon has already had the honor of making those

of Washington and of that young Hero, the friend of

Washington [Lafayette], destined to be the defender of

liberty in the two worlds. M. Houdon demands only a

piece of marble; and he shall feel sufficiently recompensed, if the commons permit him to dedicate his poor

talents to the celebration of a great man, and of those

who have acquitted their duty to the public, in decreeing

M. Neckar an honor which no minister, before him, ever

g

received from the town of Paris.

The outraged Boizot wrote a four-page pamphlet of bitter

complaint about his colleague's calculating behavior, arguing in

vain that his own bust had been approved by the people and was

deserving of his asking price. Houdon reported to the Communal Assembly by the end of December that, in consideration

of the representatives who ordered the bust, he was eager to

finish it before the new elections and that the completed marble would be on view in his studio at their convenience. In the

course of January 1790 Houdon's marble bust of Necker was

quietly inaugurated in the principal assembly hall of the Paris

Hôtel de Ville and the sculptor officially honored for his loyalty.

Only two and a half years later the political climate had

changed so completely that on 10 August 1792 the Communal

Assembly reportedly chose to demolish the portraits in the town

hall of Necker, Lafayette (installed in 1786; see cat. 45), and Louis

XVI (installed in March 1790; see cat. 50), all by Houdon, as

well as that of Bailly by Louis-Pierre Deseine, banning their

subjects as "charlatans of patriotism." Although "reduced

to dust," according to the documents, the busts were not all

completely destroyed, for the one of Lafayette was recovered

and returned to Houdon, who repaired it.

198
The present marble bust of Necker is either the salvaged

original from the town hall or, more likely, a version executed

for the sitter's family whose descendents still own a model in

plaster (see fig. i and Related Works). Like Boizot, whose likeness of Necker survives only as a reduced-size porcelain bust

issued by the Manufacture de Sèvres in 1789/1790 (fig. 2),4

Houdon created a very formal representation in the style made

popular under Louis XV. Its ambitious half-length format and

the elaborate drapery, partly covering modern French dress,

lend the subject a certain majesty and place him among the

nobility of the old regime. Houdon used the same devices for

his portraits of Lafayette and Louis XVI, the former being already

installed in the town hall. Unlike Boizot's bust, Houdon's shows

Necker with his head slightly turned, looking up and to his

left—an animated posture similar to that in an earlier painting

of the sitter by Joseph Siffrede Duplessis (fig. 3). Necker's face,

heavy like the rest of his body, corresponds to contemporary

descriptions: "He had a large head with a long face; it was especially the length of his forehead and even more that of his chin

that exceeded ordinary proportions. His eye, brown, vivid, witty,

and sometimes of a charming sweetness or of a deep melancholy, was surmounted by the arch of a very high eyebrow, which

gave to his physiognomy a very unusual expression. In a word

his face was not of a French type."16

ULRIK E D. MATHIES

3. Joseph Siffred Duplessis, Jacques Necker, 1783, oil on canvas,

Château de Coppet, Switzerland.

I99
PROVENANC E

Acquired in 1876 by Théodore, Frédéric, and Louise Necker, descendents of

the sitter's brother, from Edmond Vernet in Lyons for 4,000 francs and

donated to the museum 28 Jan. 1876 ("Journal de la Direction," AMAH;

written communication from Alfred Necker, Geneva). Possibly identical with

the marble bust "grandeur nature" sold in Paris, 16 Nov. 1883, no. 44, for 100

francs to the dealer Leopold Goldschmidt.

EXHIBITION S

Necker et Versailles [exh. cat., Château de Coppet, Switzerland] (Coppet, 1955),

61, no. 189.

REFERENCE S

Lami 1910-1911,1:431; Giacometti 1918-1919,2:281-282; Giacometti 1929,

123-124; John Pisteur, "Les Marbres de Houdon au Musée de Genève,"

Pages d'art (Jan. 1923), 221-222, ill.; Louis Gielly, "L'Art français au musée

de Genève," L'Art et les artistes, n.s. 8, no. 42 (Dec. 1923), 94, 96, ill. p. 97;

Bovy 1923-1924,3:591; Réau 1924,71; Réau 1964,1:435-436; 2:52, no. 243,

pi. 133; Arnason 1975, 88-89, fig. 170, pi. 119; Claude Lapaire, Museum of

Art and History, Geneva (Geneva, 1991), 78, no. 96.

RELATE D WORK S

On the marble of 1789, commissioned by the Commune of Paris, see

text above.

Houdon exhibited a plaster version in the Salon of 1791 (not a marble

as claimed in Giacometti 1918-1919,2:281), listed under "Plâtres, Bustes,"

no. 231, in the withdrawn catalogue (Deloynes XVII, no. 432; see Scherf

1997,57); the medium is not indicated in the published catalogue (no. 484).

The only known extant plaster, belonging to the Fondation Henry Necker,

has been on loan to the Musée des suisses à l'étranger in Pregny-Chambésy,

Switzerland, since 1984 (fig. i); painted terracotta color; H. 74 cm (with base:

87 cm), W. 47 cm; traces of the cachet de l'atelier, from the family of Dr. Hyppolyte Gosse; acquired in 1901 by Frédéric Necker (1838-1911); inherited

by Henry Necker; inherited by Harold Necker in 1947; part of the family

foundation since 1961 (exhibited in Versailles 1928, 30, no. 38).

Alternate view of cat. 32

i.See Jean-Denis Bredin, Une singulière famille. Jacques

Necker, Suzanne Necker et Germaine de Staël (Paris,

1999), and references therein.

2. Charles-Auguste Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi,

2nd éd. (Paris, 1852-1862), 4:488-489,7:261-294.

3. See Lacroix 1894-1898,1:52, 56, 58, 497, 504-505,

520; 3:319, 383, 501; republished in part in Réau 1964,

1:86-88.

4. Corr. littéraire, 15:503-507.

5. Procès-verbal... des électeurs, 1790, 2:525-526; Bailly

1821-1822,2:175.

6. Salon cat. 1789, 49, no. 236.

7. Quoted in Versailles 2001-2002,143-144.

8. Houdon thanked the committee for its support by

offering a copy of each of his busts of Necker, Lafayette,

and Louis XVI; see Lacroix 1894-1898,1:514.

9. The Columbian Magazine (Jan. 1790), 61.

10. Excerpts quoted in Versailles 2001-2002,

143-144, no. 38. Boizot's charge of 7,200 livres

seems high indeed compared with the 2,400

livres Deseine was paid for his bust of Bailly.

11. Houdon's undated autograph letter, hitherto known

only from the minutes of the Commune (Lacroix

1894-1898, 3:319), reappeared in a recent manuscript

sale at J. A. Stargardt, Berlin, 13-14 Nov. 2001, 240,

no. 510, ill. p. 241. The author is grateful to Christoph

Frank, Rome, for this reference.

12. See Lacroix 1894-1898,4:636; also 3:383, 501,

which reproduces documents that permit one to

deduce that the bust was installed between 8 and

2i Jan. 1790.

13. Tourneux 1894, 6; see also Réau 1964,1:88.

14. See Versailles 2001-2002,143-144, no. 38; 229,

no. 78; mistaken in Réau 1964,1:435, f°r a version

of Houdon's bust.

15. Exhibited in the Salon of 1783 with the portrait

of Mme Necker.

16. Sainte-Beuve 1852-1862,7:265-266.

2OO
33

* Jean-Sylvain Bailly (1736-1793)

Circa 1790

Pale beige terracotta on gray marble base

H. 59.7 cm (with base: 71.8 cm), W. 50 cm

Cast in clay on truncation of proper right arm: hondón

Cacha de l'atelier on lower outside edge of back of truncation

Lindenau-Museum Altenburg (inv. 4042)

Notable for its connection to the late eighteenth century history

of both Germany and France, this terracotta bust of the French

astronomer and politician Jean-Sylvain Bailly is the only known

surviving version of Houdon's portrait of this sitter. Bailly gained

recognition throughout Europe for his scientific achievements

in astronomy and his scholarly studies on the history of science. The son of a keeper of the French royal paintings collection, he devoted himself to research and publication for over

three decades. A member of three academies, he was popular

in the Parisian salons as well as at court and became known to

the public through his investigation of the alleged healing powers of Mesmer's "animal magnetism." Esteemed for his honesty,

virtue, and natural dignity, Bailly emerged as one of the leaders at the start of the French Revolution. He was chosen to represent his district in the Electoral Assembly of the Third Estate,

which elected him first deputy of Paris to the Estates General in

Versailles. He was the doyen, or presiding officer, of the Third

Estate when it declared itself the country's representative body

and constituted the National Assembly on 17 June 1789.

In the subsequent revolutionary events, the surrender of

the monarchy, and the turmoil in Paris, Bailly received national

acclaim for his firmness and courage. Named first mayor of

Paris in an atmosphere of wild enthusiasm, he performed his

duties during a difficult and unsettled twenty-six-month period,

striving to maintain a balance between radicalism and reaction.

Along with many moderates of the early days of the Revolution,

Bailly eventually lost favor with the masses and had to resign

after the "affaire du Champs-de-Mars" of 17 July 1791, when

he allowed the National Guard to shoot demonstrators. He

spent a few months in relative obscurity writing his memoirs,

but with the advent of the Terror, he was seized by the Jacobins,

condemned to death by the revolutionary tribunal, and guillotined in November 1793.

At the beginning of his political career, when his reputation

was at a high point, Bailly was depicted by several painters and

sculptors. On 30 July 1789, in their final action before being

disbanded, the Electors of Paris decided unanimously to honor

their first mayor by having his bust made at their personal

expense. It has been assumed that this portrait was commissioned from Houdon, along with the bust of Jacques Necker

(cat. 32) for which the Electoral and Communal Assemblies

voted on the same day. Less than seven months later the Electors inaugurated the marble bust of Bailly in an intimate and

4

emotional ceremony among themselves, and on 8 April 1790

201

ENLIGHTENMEN T FIGURE S

i. Louis-Pierre Deseine, Jean-Sylvain Bailly, 1789, plaster,

Musée Lambinet, Versailles.

Fragmentary cachet de l'atelier on cat. 33

they officially presented it to the Communal Assembly as an

homage to the city of Paris. Although it had been agreed that

the celebration should be kept simple, the portrait was installed

amid musical fanfare, speeches, and public applause in the

principal assembly hall of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, beneath

the bust of the king and facing that of Lafayette. In this location, together with Houdon's portraits of Louis XVI, Lafayette,

and Necker, it was reportedly destroyed on 10 August 1792 by

order of the Communal Assembly. While the possibility cannot be dismissed that a second bust of Bailly, by Houdon, was

placed in the city hall, it is evident from the minutes of the Electoral Assembly that the discussed marble was executed by

Houdon's contemporary Louis-Pierre Deseine at a cost of 2,400

livres. A plaster bust of Bailly by Deseine appeared in the Salon

g

of 1789, and several versions of it have been preserved (fig. i).

A comparison of Houdon's bust of Bailly with Deseine's

reveals striking similarities. In both the sitter is depicted in his

role as politician, wearing a plain cloth suit, a simple muslin

cravat, and a short cloak, as officially required for representatives of the Third Estate. His wig, with one long roll of hair above

each ear and untied hair in back framed by little side curls, is

old-fashioned. Thoughtfulness and intelligence emanate from

his long, somber face, dominated by severe features and a large

nose. In Houdon's portrait Bailly looks slightly down and to

the left, whereas in Deseine's he lifts his head and turns to

the right. Aside from this minor discrepancy, the two busts

are distinguished only by technical differences in their modeling, which is sharp and detailed in Deseine's, broader and more

generalized in Houdon's. As there is no archival indication that

Deseine copied Houdon's portrait of Bailly—exhibited two years

after Deseine's plaster in the Salon of 1791—and it is extremely

unlikely that Houdon reproduced the work of a younger and

less renowned colleague, the possibility has to be considered

that both busts derive from the same prototype.

The present terracotta, probably in Altenburg since the foun9

dation of its museum in the mid-nineteenth century, is said to

203
have come, along with Houdon's portrait of the astronomer

Jerome Lalande, from the collection of Duke Ernst II of SaxeGotha, who took a serious interest in astronomy. The duke

conducted his own experiments, corresponded with many

distinguished scientists, and built one of the most modern

observatories in Europe, the "Seeberg-Sternwarte," which he

funded from his privy purse and considered his only memorial.

Yet contemporary accounts of life at the court of Gotha point

toward the duchess rather than the duke as the original owner

of the bust of Bailly. Charlotte Amalie was unconventional if not

eccentric and—however inappropriate for her position—openly

showed her admiration for the ideals of the French Revolution.

She had a close relationship with the first director of the Seeberg observatory, Franz Xaver von Zach, who shared her political beliefs and who lived and traveled with her as her Lord High

Steward after the duke's death. The anti-revolutionary councilor

H.A.O. Reichard tells of the duchess' fascination with the new

French Republic and how she would cram the likenesses of its

leaders, "from Bailly and Lafayette up to those of the Directoire,"

into her rooms, constantly replacing them according to the

latest political developments. While Houdon's bust of Bailly

was conceived as the image of a revolutionary politician and

used by the duchess as such, it represents today the pinnacle

of Enlightenment achievement in French astronomy.

PROVENANC E

Originally from the collection of the court of Saxe-Gotha; bequeathed by

the Gotha astronomer Franz Xaver von Zach (1754-1832) to his successor,

Bernhard August von Lindenau (1779-1854), who left it as part of the

Lindenau-Zach-Foundation to the city of Altenburg; in 1926 it was placed

in the library (Bibliothekssaal) of the museum in Altenburg, where it was

identified and published by Walther Bôhme.

EXH i BITION S

Berlin 1955, 75, ill. p. 59.

REFERENCE S

Theodor Demmler and Walther Bôhme, "Unbekannte Büsten Houdons,"

Jahrbuch der Preuszischen Kunstsammlungen 47 (1926), 212-215, figs. 3-4;

Schwark 1930, 50-51, pi. 42/1; Mansfeld 1955,232-236, 238-239, no. 61;

Réau 1964,1:436-438, 2:47, no. 208; Arnason 1975, 89-90, fig. 171.

RELATE D WORK S

This is the only extant version.

Plasters

Houdon exhibited a plaster version in the Salon of 1791 (not a marble as

claimed in Lami 1910-1911,1:431; Giacometti 1918-1919,1:123,

 2:^6; and

Réau 1964, 2:47, no. 208), listed under "Plâtres, Bustes," no. 229, in the

withdrawn Salon catalogue (Deloynes XVII, no. 432; see Scherf 1997, 57),

while the medium is not indicated in the published catalogue, no. 484. The

marble bust of Bailly in the Hôtel de Ville, reportedly destroyed in 1792, was

executed by the sculptor Louis-Pierre Deseine, not Houdon (see text above).

A plaster version of the present bust was offered in the posthumous

sale of the contents of Houdon's studio, 15-17 Dec. 1828, 16, no. 19, and

ULRIK E D. MATHIES

Back view of cat. 33

204
ENLIGHTENMEN T FIGURE S

sold jointly with plaster busts of Emmanuel Mercier Dupaty and two

unnamed sitters for 12 francs (see Réau 1964,1:119).

Medallion

A medal by Pierre-Simon-Benjamin Duvivier (1728-1819), showing Bailly

in right profile, is very close to both Houdon's and Deseine's busts. See Nocq

1911, 225-226, nos. 243-244, pi. XVI.

Misidentified marble

A marble bust of a magistrate in the Musée Fabre, Montpellier (inv. 895.7.63),

inscribed 1788, was misidentified as Houdon's portrait of Bailly in the early

twentieth century. See Gonse 1904, 265, ill.; repeated in Lami 1910-1911,

1:431; Giacometti 1918-1919, 2:64-66; and Giacometti 1929, 2:7-8, ill.

after 1:88; corrected in Brière 1913, 362-364.

Signature on cat. 33

1. Edwin Burrows Smith, "Jean-Sylvain Bailly:

Astronomer, Mystic, Revolutionary. 1736-1793,"

Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s.

44, pt. 4 (Philadelphia, 1954), 427-538, with comprehensive bibliography and list of Bailly's works.

See also Seymour L Chapín, "Bailly," Dictionary

of Scientific Biography (New York, 1970-1990),

1:400-402. On Bailly's political career see Gene A.

Brucker, Jean-Sylvain Bailly: Revolutionary Mayor of

Paris (Urbana, 1950); and George Armstrong Kelly,

"Jean-Sylvain Bailly, 1736-1793," Victims, Authority,

and Terror (Chapel Hill, 1982), 149-210.

2. Procès-verbal... des électeurs, 1790, 2:524-526; Bailly

1821-1822, 2:178.

3. See, e.g., Mansfeld 1955, 217, 233; Réau 1964,1:173,

1:437-438, 2:47, no. 208; and Arnason 1975, 89.

4. This gathering of 22 Feb. 1790 in the presence of

General Lafayette is described in the minutes of the

Electoral Assembly; see Procès-verbal...des électeurs,

1790,3:6-21.

5. For a full account of this celebration see Lacroix

1894-1898,4:636-646; see also the version in

Procès-verbal... des électeurs, 1790, 3:53-61.

6. Tourneux 1894, 6.

7. Entry of 24 Mar. 1790, Procès-verbal...des âecteurs,

1790, 3:45: "Au commencement de la séance, M.

Duveyrier a fait lecture d'un apperçu des dépenses

auxquelles l'Assemblée s'étoit assujétie. Il a compris,

dans cet apperçu le buste de M. Bailly, pour une

somme de 2,400 liv, telle qu'elle avoit été fixée par

M. de Senne [sic], Auteur de ce buste. Ce prix a paru

raisonnable, attendu la perfection de l'ouvrage."

8. See Anne-Marie de Lapparent, "Louis-Pierre

Deseine, Statuaire, 1749-1822. Sa vie, son oeuvre"

(Ph.D. diss., Ecole du Louvre, Paris, 1985), 2:35-40;

Philippe Bordes and Alain Chevalier, Catalogue des

peintures, sculptures et dessins. Musée de la Révolution

française (Vizille, 1996), 174-176, no. 43, ill.

9. See Ingeborg Titz-Matuszak, Bemhard August von

Lindenau (1779-1854), "Feind der Reaction und der Revolution." Eine politische Biographie, Veroffentlichungen

aus Thüringischen Staatsarchiven 5, no. i (Weimar,

2000); see also i$ojahre Lindenau-Museum Altenburg

(Altenburg, 1998).

10. Lindenau-Museum, Altenburg (inv. 4043).

11. See Peter Brosche, "Franz Xaver von Zach und

die Grundung der Seeberg-Sternwarte bei Gotha

1788," Jahrbuch der Coburger Landesstijiung 33 (1988),

173-204, and references therein. For a collection of

primary sources see Peter Brosche, éd., Astronomie der

Goethezeit. Textsammlung aus Zeitschriften und Briefen

Franz Xaver von Zachs, Oswalds Klassiker der exakten

Wissenschaften 280 (Frankfurt am Main, 1995).

12. Peter Brosche, Der Astronom der Herzogin. Leben

und Werk von Franz Xaver von Zach (1754-1832), Acta

Histórica Astronomiae 12 (Frankfurt, 2001).

13. H.A.O. Reichard (1751-1828). Eine Selbstbiographie,

ed. Hermann Uhde (Stuttgart, 1877), 288-289.

205

34

* The Montgolfier Brothers,

Joseph (1740-1810) and Etienne (1745-1799)

Dated 1783

Gilded bronze in red marble frame

H. 61.0 cm, W. 54.0 cm

Inscribed under truncation of the neck: houdon fecit 1783

Musée de l'air et de l'espace, Le Bourget-Paris (inv. 11242)

This double profile portrait by Houdon commemorates the

invention of the first hot-air balloon. The two Montgolfier brothers, Joseph and Etienne, were directors of a large paper mill in

Vidalon near Annonay (capital of the province of Upper Vivarais

in what is currently the department of Ardèche, central France).

One day, according to the baronne d'Oberkirch: "M. [Joseph]

Montgolfier had covered a jar in which he was boiling a liquid

with a paper folded into a cone or sphere. This paper rose into

the air all of a sudden. Montgolfier replaced it, it rose again.

That chance event was not lost on him. He began to think about

the effect of air that had become lighter than the atmospheric

air as a result of the expansion produced by heat. By reflecting

on this and trying to make improvements, he finally arrived at

the idea that was developed and applied in his aerostat."

On 4 June 1783, assembly day for the Estates of Vivarais, the

Montgolfier brothers, after a few attempts, made a taffeta globe

filled with hot air (produced by burning wet straw and shredded

wool) rise from the ground. A report was issued the next day. But

on 27 August 1783 a globe filled with hydrogen, designed by the

physicist Jacques-Alexandre-César Charles and the builders

Jacques-Charles Robert and Marie-Noël Robert, ascended above

the Champs-de-Mars. This led to competition between the two

systems. On 12 September a tethered balloon filled with hot air

was launched in front of a committee of the Académie royale

des sciences; then on 19 September the first passenger flight

(with animals) departed from Versailles. On 15 October a tethered

hot-air balloon carried aloft the physicist Jean-François Pilâtre de

Rozier; then on 21 November the first free flight departed from

the château de la Muette carrying Pilâtre de Rozier and thé marquis of Arlandes. Ten days later, on i December, Jacques Charles

together with Marie-Noël Robert ascended above the Jardin des

Tuileries in their hydrogen balloon. This series of flights caused

a huge craze in Paris as well as in the provinces and abroad.

Thereafter, the ascent of a "montgolfière" became a fairly common and always popular spectacle.

In autumn 1783 excitement surrounded the execution of a

commemorative medal: "There has been talk of a fully funded

subscription raised to have a gold medal struck in honor of M.

de Montgolfier. M. Houdon was commissioned for the design,

M. Gâteau for the execution. Yesterday, M. Faujas de Saint-Fond,

heading a deputation of contributors, presented that medal

to M. de Montgolfier." In another account,"The bas-relief

executed by M. Houdon to serve as the model for the medal...

depicts the heads of the two brothers, Etienne and Joseph,

207
i. Robert de Launay,

The Montgolfier

Brothers, 1783,

engraving, BNEst.

coinventors of the aerostatic balloon. M. Delaunay the Younger,

a student of the famous engraver by that name, drew and

engraved it with great taste: the two heads, truly appropriate for

a medal, have the most perfect likeness."

The medal was presented to the king by Pilâtre de Rozier

on 30 November 1783. It had been done in gold by NicolasMarie Gatteaux from a model designed by Houdon. An engraving by Robert de Launay reproduces the model, with the profiles

in reverse, and includes the exerque around the circumference:

"ETIENNE ET JOSEPH MONTGOLFIER FRERES, Nés à

Annonay en Vivarais / Inventeurs en Société du Globe Aérostatique." The medallion is presented on a base with the inscription: "Montgolfier que l'Europe entière / Ne sauroit assez

révérer, / A, des airs franchi la carrière, / Quand l'oeil de ses

rivaux cherche a la mesurer. / Dessiné et Gravé par De Launay

le jeune, / d'après le Bas-relief de M . houdon Sculpteur du

Roi, fait en 1783 / pour servir de Modèle a la Médaille qu'on

doit frapper en leur honneur" (fig. i). Other engravings, such

as that by Roze le Noir, reproduce the profiles in the same direction as the model. This double profile by Houdon is also recognizable on a biscuit porcelain produced by the Manufacture

de Sèvres; it appears on the front of the pedestal for a small

monument composed of génies, one of whom is blowing a trumpet, and of two female figures on a balloon. A plaster medallion is also depicted by Boilly on the wall of Houdon's studio,

o

but with only a single profile (cat. 66).

In 1784 Houdon, with other sculpteurs du Roi, took part in

a competition established by the comte d'Angiviller for a monument to be erected in the Jardin des Tuileries in commemoration of the ascent from that place by Charles and Robert,

on i December 1783, in the first manned flight of a hydrogen

9

balloon. Concurrently, he proposed to sculpt busts of the chief

protagonists in the air adventure. Only the bust of Pilâtre de

Rozier is known with certainty to have been executed. Those

of Jacques Charles and Joseph Montgolfier were produced by

Louis-Simon Boizot and Lucas de Montigny, respectively12.

Houdon's superb gilded bronze medallion, dated 1783,

shows two profiles side by side, worthy of an antique cameo. It

is a commanding image enlivened by the tuft of hair that rises

like a flame from each man's forehead, a symbol of their

genius; the breath of that genius also seems to stir the hair

flowing behind them. Houdon had executed a marble the pre14

vious year, an oval medallion of Apollo (fig. 2), which displays

a clear stylistic similarity to The Montgolfier Brothers. It is not

known whether the sculptor executed a marble of the present

composition, which circulated widely.

GUILHE M SCHERF

2. Houdon, Apollo, 1782, marble, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

208
ENLIGHTENMEN T FIGURE S

PROVENANC E

Perhaps from descendants of the sitters. Versailles 1928, no. 35: "l'original

se trouvait, il y a une cinquantaine d'années, chez Mlle de Montgolfier,

dernière fille survivante de l'un des aéronautes; il doit être encore conservé

dans la famille"; annotation on back of an old photograph (no doubt by Paul

Vitry; files of the sculpture department, Musée du Louvre) indicates the

medallion was with the dealer André Camoin, organizer of the centennial

exhibition in Paris. It was offered to the Musée de l'air in 1936 (museum

files); acquired at the Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 31 May 1948.

EXHIBITION S

Da Urbino allé rive délia Loira. Paesaggi e volti europei / Portraits sculptés des

Lumières au Romantisme. Autour de Jean-Baptiste Nini (ijij-ijSG) [exh. cat.,

Palazzo Ducale] (Urbino, 2001-2002), 240-243, no. 124, ill.

de J. M. Montgolfier, mécanicien, l'un des inventeurs des aérostats, mort

le 26 juin 1810."

Late castings at the Musée Carnavalet, Paris (inv. S 906; see Paris 1928,

no. 95: "moulage ancien"; and Arnason 1975, fig. 136); and thé Musée

Lambinet, Versailles (lent by the castle, which received donation in 1879;

see Versailles 1928, no. 35; Versailles cat. 1993, 276, no. 1269, ill.).

Casts distributed by the studio of the Musée de sculpture comparée at

Le Trocadéro. See Enlart and Roussel 1910, 223, G 156.

Prints

Engraving (reversed) by Robert de Launay, BNEst (N2, microfilm D 217216;

see Giacometti 1929,1:206, ill., and 2:220).

Engraving by Roze le Noir, BNEst (N2, microfilm D 217215), does not

reverse Houdon's medallion.

REFERENCE S

Réau 1964, 1:341-342, 2:56, no. 267, pi. 140; Arnason 1975, 66, pi. 74

(detail); Le Temps des ballons. Art et histoire (Paris, 1994), 24-25, ill.

RELATE D WORK S

Plasters

Posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio, 15-17 Dec. 1828, no. 38

(medallion of Joseph Montgolfier): "plâtre peint. Portrait en bas-relief

Gold medal

Engraved by Nicolas-Marie Gatteaux; inscribed on front: "JOSE. ET ETIEN.

MONTGOLFIER / POUR AVOIR RENDU L'AIR NAVIGABLE"; and on

back: "Expérience du champ de Mars 27 aoust / 1783. En vertu d'une

souscription / sous la direct, de M. Faujas / de S* Fond." A print was made

after the medal (BNEst, N2, microfilm D 217222).

1. Mémoires de la baronne d'Oberkirch sur la cour de

Louis XVI et la société française avant 1789, éd. with

notes by Suzanne Burkard (Paris, 1989), 355-356.

2. A fund was established to cover the development

costs for the invention; see Bombelles (ed. 1977), 1:251,

16 Aug. 1783.

3. See Le Temps des Ballons, 1994, 37-39-

4. Mémoires secrets, 27 Oct. 1783 (London, 1784), 23:244

and 265.

5. Bombelles (ed. 1993), 3:290.

6. ETIENNE AND JOSEPH, THE MONTGOLFIER

BROTHERS, born in Annonay in Vivarais / Coinventors of the aerostatic balloon"; "Montgolfier, whom

all of Europe / could not adequately revere, / has

unleashed the free flow of air, / when his rivals'

eyes seek to measure it. / Designed and engraved

by De Launay the Younger, / after the bas-relief of

Mr. / houdon sculptor to the king, done in 1783 /

to serve as a model for the medal that is to be made

in their honor."

7. Bourgeois and Lechevallier-Chevignard 1914, no. 7,

pi. 31.

8. Perhaps it was difficult to paint two profiles dearly

in perspective at this size. Yet the catalogue for

Houdon's posthumous sale (no. 38) also mentions

only one profile (see Related Works).

9. Furcy-Raynaud 1927,417-421. In 1792 Houdon's

model was housed in the Salle des antiques at

the Louvre (depository for the royal collection of

sculptures). Only the two terracotta models by

Clodion are currently known (Private Collection;

and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

10. Journal de Paris, no. 337 (3 Dec. 1783), 1385: "Nous

sommes instruits que M. Houdon, après avoir fait le

buste de M. Montgolfier, par une suite de l'hommage

qu'il rend aux brillantes expériences aérostatiques

qu'on vient de faire, va y ajouter les bustes des quatre

illustres voyageurs aériens."

11. Plaster exhibited at the Salon of 1789^0. 245;

Houdon's posthumous sale, 1828, no. 21:

"plâtre coloré."

12. Boizot's plaster is in the Musée Dunois, Beaugency

(see Versailles 2001-2002,130-131, ill.; other versions are known). There are several versions of Montigny's bust of Joseph Montgolfier; a terracotta was part

of the Jacques Doucet sale, 16-17 May 1906, no. 131,

ill. These are beautiful sculptures, executed with

sensitivity. Their composition, with an undraped and

rounded truncation sharply emphasizing the face,

is reminiscent of a format Houdon had favored since

his bust of Diderot (cat. 19).

13. Réau 1964,1:342.

14. Louvre cat. 1998,431, ill. The marble in the

Louvre, signed and dated 1782, is a version of a plaster

exhibited at the Salon of 1777, the marble of which,

executed in 1780, was intended for the prince of

Holstein-Gottorp, the future Czar Paul I.

209

35

* Diana the Huntress

Dated 1782

Bronze on square bronze self-base

H. 189.87 cm (base: W. 68.43 cm, D. 68.1 cm)

Inscribed in wax before casting, on proper left side of base: HOUDON F. 1782. / POUR Jn. GIRARDOT DE MARIGNY.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens (inv. 27.186)

Houdon's statue of Diana the Huntress is among his most

famous and popular works. The figure was first conceived to

fulfill a commission from Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha. In a letter of 24 January 1775 Frédéric-Melchior Grimm, the duke's

artistic advisor in Paris, suggested that Houdon be asked to

execute a marble sculpture, perhaps of Diana, for the duke's

English garden at Schloss Friedenstein in Gotha as compensation for the loss of the tomb commission for the ducal court on

which Houdon had been engaged for several years. A large

plaster model seems to have been completed in 1776, the date

inscribed on the plaster statue now in Gotha. By August 1777

a life-size plaster was on view in Houdon's studio in the Bibliothèque du Roi, its exhibition timed to coincide with the opening of the Salon that year. In the Salon itself he showed a marble

Bust of Diana derived from the larger sculpture (see cat. 36). The

life-size marble Diana, intended for the duke (fig. i), differs

from other versions in that Houdon had to add a group of reeds

at the base to support the left leg as well as a quiver with arrows

to support the right arm. Although Ernst II purchased the marble in January 1782, it was never sent to Gotha. Instead Grimm

negotiated a sale of the marble to Catherine II of Russia, who

acquired it somewhat reluctantly in May 1784.

Houdon depicts Diana, goddess of the hunt and of the

moon, completely nude, running forward, with her weight balanced on her left foot. Her hair is drawn up loosely on top of her

head, on which is placed a crescent moon, and she carries a

bow in her left hand and an arrow in her right. The sculptor's

representation of Diana the huntress as a nude was unusual

and has been the subject of extensive discussion and study. A

letter recently discovered in the archives at Gotha clarifies the

origin of the idea for the figure and the iconographical sources

for it. Although unsigned, the document was probably written

by Grimm and sent to Ernst II. It cites ancient Greek and Roman

literary and iconographie precedents as well as several antique

engraved gems and medals that show Diana nude, and it quotes

the German antiquarian Johann Winckelmann, whose description of Diana corresponds closely with Houdon's statue: "Diana

has all of the attractions of her sex, and seems unaware of it.

As she is always represented walking or running, her gaze,

directed straight ahead, extends into the far distance above all

of the objects in the foreground. She always looks like a virgin.

Sometimes her hair is gracefully tied on top of her head....

Her waist is lighter and thinner than that of Juno, or even that

of Pallas." Houdon must also have been aware of French
i. Hondón, Diana

the Huntress, 1780,

marble, Calouste

Gulbenkian Museum,

Lisbon.

2. School of

Fontainebleau,

Diana the Huntress,

mid-sixteenth century,

oil on canvas, Musée

du Louvre, Paris.

Renaissance depictions of Diana nude (see fig. 2) or the white

marble figure of Diana (ca. 1549) from a fountain at the château

d'Anet, with muscular, elongated proportions similar to those

of Houdoris Diana.

Unquestionably Houdon relied heavily on Grimm in determining the figurai type of his Diana, and he must have been

guided by Grimm's criticisms as he developed the composition.

The result is a daring blend of the traditional representation of

Diana nude at her bath with that of Diana the huntress, who

was usually depicted clothed, both in antiquity and in the Renaissance. What makes this statue one of the major masterpieces

of the period is the personal way Houdon transformed these

received ideas into a sculpture of cool beauty and originality

and of great technical sophistication.

The Huntington's Diana is the first life-size bronze the

sculptor ever made. In 1772 Houdon, who was deeply interested

in the art of bronze casting, obtained a studio at the du Roule

foundry in the Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, where Jean-Baptiste II

Lemoyne, Edme Bouchardon, and Jean-Baptiste Pigalle had cast

g

major works. In January 1779 he proposed casting a bronze of

his Diana there for Louis XVI; but doubts were expressed that

the sculptor was equipped to carry out the project, and the comte

d'Angiviller, director of the Bâtiments du Roi, found the price

too high. Subsequently, the present bronze, dated 1782, was

commissioned by the wealthy Protestant banker Jean Girardot

de Marigny for the garden of his house in Paris. The figure

itself was cast in five sections, which were assembled by welding: the head and torso, the left arm, the right arm, the left leg

and foot with a part of the base, and the right leg. The arrow, bow,

and base were cast separately.

The French painter Henri-Pierre Danloux, while an exile

in London, wrote about the commissioning of the piaña, as

described to him by M. de Vermenoux, a relative of Girardot's:

"He greatly praised the sculptor Houdon and pointed out an

indication of his charlatanism One morning [Houdon] came

to M. Girardot's house, feigning an unhappy expression that

begged the question as to what was wrong with him he was

angry that his Diana, which he considered his masterpiece, had

not been executed in bronze. M. Girardot consoled him quickly

by commissioning it from him, and this is how he used methods that are beneath him." This account may reflect the

painter's bitterness and jealousy toward artists like Houdon

who stayed and prospered in France, but it also confirms an

entrepreneurial side to the sculptor (which was noted and criticized by others) as well as his ambition to cast a major work in

bronze. The Diana was cast by i October 1782, when Houdon

wrote d'Angiviller inviting him to come to see it in the garden

of the Hôtel Colbert, an invitation d'Angiviller never accepted.

In 1788 Houdon cast a life-size figure of Apollo (cat. 37) as

a pendant to the Diana, and both were recorded in Girardot's

garden in Paris at the time of his death in January 1796. Girardot, who is best known for his collection of contemporary

paintings by Hubert Robert and Claude-Joseph Vernet,

favored Houdon in his sculpture collection. He owned a small

212
DECORATIV E SCULPTUR E

terracotta of Houdon's Diana, the marble of Le Baiser donné

and its pendant Le Baiser rendu, all three of which appear in his

posthumous inventory, as well as a marble portrait of Anne

Audéoud, a marble bust of Sabine Houdon, and a plaster bust

of Benjamin Franklin of a "grande proportion."17

ANN E L. POULET

1756-1^3 (New Haven, 1953), 99; Wark 1959,78-79, pis. XLI, XLII; Réau

1960, 57-58; Réau 1964, 1:45-46, 226, 231-233; 2:13, no. 5; Cecil 1965,

456, 458, fig. 5; Hodgkinson 1970, 132; Gaborit 1975, 244-245, 247;

Arnason 1975, 45, 64, 67, fig. 100, pi. 42; Girod de l'Ain 1977, 113-114;

Nicolas Mathieu, "Autour des trois représentations de Diane dans les musées

de Tours et du Mans," in IlAntiquitégréco-romaine vue par le siècle des lumières.

Collection CaesarodunumXXII bis, éd. R. Chevallier (Tours, 1987), 359-378;

Bresc-Bautier 1994, 373; New York, 1999-2000,128; Scherf 2000, 23, 57

nn. 58-60, figs. 17,18; Bailey 2002,155-162, ill. p. 161.

RELATE D WORK S

Extant life-size versions

Plaster

Schlossmuseum Gotha (inv. P 24); H. ça. 191 cm (with base: 210 cm),

W. 95 cm; round base inscribed: "HOUDON. F. 1776."

PROVENANC E

Commissioned by Jean Girardot de Marigny (1733-1796) in whose private

garden in Paris, at 44 rue Vivienne, the statue was displayed by 25 Aug. 1783

when the Salon opened; American artist John Trumbull wrote in his journal 6 Aug. 1786, "Went with M. and Mme Houdon, to the salon on the Boulevards, to see his little Diana in marble, a very beautiful figure From the

salon went to Mr. Girardon's [sic], where is a beautiful bronze of the same

figure, large as life" (Sizer 1953, 99); included in Girardot's posthumous

inventory, 23 Germinal an IV [12 Apr. 1796] (AN, Min. Cent., étude L, file 802,

fol. 5): "Dans le jardin, une Diane et un Apolon [sic], en bronze, prisés... 1200

livres"; Collection Aguado by 1867; sold at Hôtel Drouot, Paris: "Notice d'une

Belle Statue de Diane en bronze par Houdon appartenant à M. le Comte O.

A[guado]," 20 May 1870, no. i (23,500 francs), to Richard Seymour Conway,

fourth marquess of Hertford (1800-1870); bequeathed to his illegitimate

son, Sir Richard Wallace (1818-1890) and installed in garden of his

château de Bagatelle, outside Paris; by inheritance to his wife, Lady Wallace (1819-1897); bequeathed to Sir John Murray Scott (1847-1912); sold

by Scott in 1904 through an agent in Paris to Charles T. Yerkes, New York

(see Yerkes 1904, vol. 2, no. 85); sold, New York, American Art Association,

Yerkes Collection, 12 Apr. 1910, no. 247; purchased by Eduardo Guinlé, Rio

de Janeiro; purchased by Duveen, then sold, 6 Mar. 1916, p. 12 of bill book

no. i, to M.E.H. Huntington.

EXHIBITION S

Paris, Salon cat. 1783,49: "Une statue de Diane en bronze chez M. Girardot de Marigny, rue Vivienne"; Exposition universelle of 1867, Paris;

see Alfred Darcel, "Exposition universelle. Le Bronze dans les salles de

l'histoire du travail," GBA 23 (Oct. 1867), 318: "Nous nous arrêterons sur

la Diane de Houdon, réplique de l'exemplaire du Louvre, possédée par

M. Aguado."

REFERENCE S

Montaiglon and Duplessis 1855,179~I^5' 264-265; Délerot and Legrelle

1857,121-129,164,166,227; Michel 1889, 281-287; Dilke 1900,131-132,

185; Charles Tyson Yerkes, Paintings and Sculpture in thé Collection of Charles

T. Yerkes, Esq., New York (Boston, 1904), vol. 2, no. 85, ill.; Vitry 19073, 9,

13-16; Vitry i907b, 205, 207, nos. 84, 98; Lami 1910-1911,1:422; Bapst

1915,13-14; Giacometti 1918-1919,1:81; 3:94-109,115-117; Giacomerti

1929,1:36,169,186; 2:229,23!>

 234~2

35' 243-244; Cecil 1950,172 n. 28;

Théodore Sizer, éd., The Autobiography of Colonel John Trumbull, Patriot-Artist,

Marble

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (inv. 1390) (fig. i); H. 210 cm

(statue: 193 cm), W. 98 cm, D. 115 cm; round base inscribed: "J. A.

HOUDON, 1780"; figure has a quiver over her shoulder held by a strap

across her torso and a bunch of reeds at her feet.

Bronze

Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. CC 204); H. 206 cm (figure: 193 cm), W. 90

cm (without arrow), D. 114 cm; round base inscribed: "HOUDON. 1^.1790";

bought for the Louvre in 1829, having been offered in Houdon's posthumous sale, Paris, 15-17 Dec. 1828, no. 2.

Posthumous bronze

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tours (inv. 884-3-1); H. 206 cm (figure: 190 cm);

square base: W. 68.3 cm, D. 69 cm; signature and date cast into proper left

side of base: "HOUDON I 1776"; cold stamp signature across top proper

left edge of base: "CARBONNEAUX 1839";

 cast

 ^n :^39 by Carbonneaux

after a plaster similar to that in Gotha.

Terracotta

Frick Collection, New York (inv. 39.2.79); H. 192 cm (figure: 173 cm); square

base; inscription partly damaged and reworked: "HOUDON Scult"; possibly

the same as one sold in Houdon's studio sale of 8 Oct. 1795, no. 2 (see

terracotta below).

Lost life-size versions (in chronological order of sales)

Plaster from the duc de Caylus, Paris, n Dec. 1783, no. 33: "Diane chasseresse. Elle est nue et semble courir. D'une main, elle tient un arc et de l'autre

une flèche. Cette figure est de grandeur naturelle, en plâtre, par M. Houdon."

Plaster from [Le Bas], Paris, 26 Apr. 1793, no. 86: "Une figure de Diane.

Très beau plâtre en couleur terre cuite par Houdon."

Bronze from Houdon's studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795, no. 63: "Diane, debout,

armé d'une flèche £ dans l'action de chasser. Cette Figure de grandeur naturelle,

est posée sur terrasse en bronze; hauteur totale, 6 pieds" (152,000 livres).

Terracotta from Houdon's studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795, no. 86: "Diane,

figure de 6 pied de haut, compris l'épaisseur du socle [non présenté]."

Plaster in Houdon's posthumous sale, 15-17 Dec. 1828, no. 3; modeled

after life-size bronze figure in same sale (no. 2), bought by the Louvre.

Lead included in Houdon's 1784 list of his own works (no. 83) under

the year 1781; no indication of size.

213
Back view of cat. 35

Side view of cat. 35

Extant reductions

Plaster

Musée Lambinet, Versailles (inv. 701); painted terracotta color; H. 63 cm,

W. 26 cm, D. 37 cm; cachet de l'atelier on back of base; gift of M. Surell, municipal counselor, in 1882. See Gendre 1997,119, fig. 187.

Marble

Private Collection, New York, H. 62 cm (diam. of base: 20 cm); inscribed:

"HOUDON F: 1786"; probably the work John Trumbull admired in 1786

(see Provenance); probably the one Houdon planned to exhibit at the Salon

of 1791 (it appears in the withdrawn Salon cat. as no. 224, H. 18-20 pouces;

see Scherf 1997,57) and mentioned in his mémoire to Bachelier of 1794: "Le

marbre de ma Diane est à la Russie; le marbre de petite proportion était à

feu d'Ormesson" (Réau 1964,1:99); seized at the time of the Revolution in

1794 (Scherf 1997, 58 n. 76).

Lost or unidentified reductions

Terracottas

Girardot de Marigny's posthumous inventory [12 Apr. 1796] (AN, Min. Cent.,

étude L, file 802, fol. 62): "Une petite figure en terre cuite représentant la

Diane de Houdon, sous cage de verre, prisée 15 livres."

Houdon's studio sale, Paris, 8 Oct. 1795, no. 87: "La même Figure [Diana]

en petit, sur socle bleu turquin; hauteur 24 pouces [61 cm]" (7000 livres).

Plaster

A document of 26 Oct. 1785 indicates that Houdon sent a reduced plaster of

Diana to Robert Edge Pine in Philadelphia to be sold on consignment for 25

louis; it had not been sold when Pine died in 1788 (letter from Franklin's son,

30 Mar. 1789); Dupont de Nemours wrote Houdon, 29 Apr. 1800 [9 Floréal

an VIII] that he had still not been able to sell the "Diane en plâtre" because

it was "trop nue" (BMV, F 946, no. 49 bis; nos. 39, 39 bis, 39 ter; no. 34).

Bronzes—sales catalogues (chronological order)

Porche-Vaubal, Paris, 29 Aug. 1797, no. 109: "La Diane, connue par la réputation qu'elle a acquise à son auteur. Haut.r 22 po[uces] [55.9 cm]" (150 livres,

to Lebrun).

Verdun-Bouquet, Paris, 26 Dec. 1797, under "Bronzes. Houdon," no.

179: "La Diane, en petit, très-connue par la réputation qu'elle a fait à son

auteur, aussi exécutée par lui. Haut. 22 po[uces]."

Amman de Schwanberg, The Hague, 19 Dec. 1809, no. 138: "Une Diane

en bronze sur un socle de marbre griotte avec frise dorée d'or mat" (299.95

livres, to Larenville).

[Lucien-François] Feuchère père, Paris, 29 Nov. 1824, under "Bronzes,"

no. 15: "La Diane, de 20 pouces [50.8 cm] de proportions, copie de celle qui

est à la Bibliothèque."

Houdon's posthumous sale, 15-17 Dec. 1828, no. 4: "Diane. Bronze.

Jolie copie de la statue précédente."

Plasters—sales catalogues (chronological order)

Cabinet de M.*** [Galonné], Paris, 21 Apr. 1788, no. 255: "Houdon. La Diane

en plâtre de couleur terre-cuite" (121 livres, to Maître Goman).

Houdon's posthumous sale, 15-17 Dec. 1828, no. 5: "Diane. Plâtre peint.

Empreinte prise sur la réduction qui vient d'être décrite."

Boilly paintings

Boilly's 1804 painting of Houdon in His Studio depicts a life-size Diana in

214
DECORATIV E SCULPTUR E

the center background, its greenish black color indicating that it is bronze

(cat. 66, fig. i); possibly the bronze sold from Houdon's studio after his

death in 1828 (no. 2), now at the Louvre. Boilly's second canvas (cat. 66)

shows a life-size Diana in a terracotta color, which may be the painted

plaster from the same posthumous sale (no. 3).

Posthumous copies

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries many copies in various media

and sizes were made after Houdon's Diana. The French bronze foundries

such as Barbedienne, Susse Frères, and Thiébaut copied the figure; see

Scherf 2000,31-32, fig. 32. The Louvre's plaster cast workshops made and

sold casts of the Louvre's Diana from 1883 until the early 19905 (see Rionnet 1996, 265, no. 1117).

Signature on cat. 35

1. Published by Thomas von Bogyay, "Nouveaux documents relatifs aux rapports de la Cour de Gotha avec

les artistes français. II: Houdon et Gotha. Ses projets

pour le mausolée de la duchessse Louise-Dorothée,"

.BSÍL4F (1935), 142-144. See also Frank, Mathies, and

Poulet 20023, 213-221; and Frank, Mathies, and

Poulet 2OO2b, 475-484.

2. Schuttwolf 1995,146-147, no. 56.

3. Salon cat. 1777, no. 248: "Buste en marbre d'une

Diane, dont le modèle, de grandeur naturelle, a été fait

à la Bibliothèque du Roi. Cette Diane doit être exécutée

en marbre, £ placée dans les Jardins de S.A. le Duc de

Saxe-Gotha."

4. Réau 1964,1:44-45.

5. See Réau 1932,151-165.

6. See Scherf 2000,10-15.

7. Johann Winckelmann, Histoire de l'art chez ks anciens,

ouvrage traduit de l'allemand (Amsterdam, 1766), 1:282.

8. Paris, Louvre (inv. MR 1581) H. 211 cm, W. 217 cm.

See Louvre cat. 1998, 685.

9. See Bresc-Bautier 1994, 372-377.

10. See letter of Jean-Baptiste Pierre (premier peintre

du Roi) to d'Angiviller, 10 Jan. 1779, in Furcy-Raynaud

1905, 238.

11. Letter of d'Angiviller to Pierre, 18 Jan. 1779,

in Furcy-Raynaud 1905, 241.

12. See Girod de l'Ain 1977,113-114; and Bailey 2002,

155-162.

13. Baron Roger Portalis, Henry Pierre Danloux.

Peintre de portraits et son journal durant l'émigration

(Paris, 1910), 143.

14. Published in Réau 1964,1:45.

15. Bailey 2002,161.

16. Salon of 1781, no. 255.

17. Listed in the withdrawn catalogue for thé Salon of

1791, nos. 227 and 228 (see Scherf 1997, 57 nn. 24, 25).

215

* Bust of Diana

Dated 1778

White Carrara marble on round, dark gray marble base

H. 63 cm (with base: 81.6 cm), W. 45.1 cm

Inscribed on truncation of proper right arm: HOUDON,/FECIT, / 1778.

National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Syma Busiel (inv. 1957.1.1)

Among the more than thirty works Houdon submitted to the

Salon of 1777 was a life-size marble Bust of Diana, derived from

the plaster statue of Diana exhibited in his studio at the same

time (see cat. 35). This was not the first instance in which the

artist created a bust as an independent work of art based on one

of his full-length sculptures. He had executed a bust of Saint

John the Baptist from a statue done for the church of Santa

Maria degli Angeli in Rome in 1766-1767 (cat. 3) and a head

of an ¿corché from his famous anatomical figure study (cat. i).

In this bust the goddess turns her head to her right and

looks over her shoulder. Her hair is piled on top of her head,

with loose strands falling down the nape of her neck. The

curls gathered at her crown swing out to the right, giving the

impression of sudden movement, as if she has just spotted

her prey. A crescent moon is held in place on top of her head

with a narrow band and a lock of hair. Her smooth features,

straight nose, blank eyes, and wavy hair pulled back from her

face recall classical prototypes, especially the famous Roman

copy of a Greek bronze original from the second half of the

fourth century, sometimes thought to be the work of Leochares

(fig. i). That statue, first recorded at Fontainebleau in 1586,

was one of the most admired and imitated antique works in

France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Houdon

certainly knew the sculpture well, along with other representations of Diana the huntress (see cat. 35).

Houdon was deliberately alluding to these sources at the

same time he created a new classical style of his own. The soft

treatment of the hair in loosely defined locks, the subtle use of

the chisel and drill to create the illusion of the texture and weight

of the strands of hair is uniquely his invention. Houdon's marble Bust of Diana received warm praise from the critics. Bachaumont wrote that it was "better conceived than that by Allegrain.

It is the type of austere beauty of this goddess which inspires

respect, instead of encouraging boldness by graces that are too

seductive." The reviewer from the Mercure de France found that

both Houdon's statue and his bust of Diana "recall in a very pleasant way the beauties of antique sculpture."

Although there is consensus concerning the fine quality

and authenticity of the National Gallery of Art's Bust of Diana,

signed and dated 1778, there has been a great deal of discussion in the literature as to whether it is the bust that was shown

at the Salon of 1777. The discrepancy in date has led some scholars to conclude "this is a second bust, and that the first—in the

Salon of 1777—was lost or destroyed." Another marble bust of

217

36
i. Roman, Diana the

Huntress, copy after

a Greek original of

the second half of the

fourth century EC,

marble, Musée du

Louvre, Paris.

2. Gabriel de SaintAubin, drawing of

Bust of Diana in

Salon catalogue of

1777, no. 248 (detail),

BNEst.

Diana, undated, completely nude, and of doubtful quality and

provenance, was proposed as that shown at the Salon of 1777

(see Related Works). One valuable piece of evidence is the drawing of the bust that Saint-Aubin sketched in the margin of his

Salon catalogue (fig. 2). He depicted the Diana with the same

truncation and band crossing her torso diagonally between her

breasts as seen in the National Gallery's bust. This strap does

not appear in the full-length plaster statue of Diana exhibited in

Houdon's studio during the Salon of 1777. The strap with a

quiver and arrows was introduced by Houdon in the full-length

marble of Diana, signed and dated 1780, as a support for

the weight of her left arm; he also added reeds at her feet to

support the weight of the entire figure. Even though dated

1780, Houdon's conception of the marble Diana was complete

at least by April 1778, when Bachaumont wrote: "It is unfortunate that the almost celestial pose [of the Diana], very well

executed in plaster, cannot be adapted to the weight of marble.

The sculptor will be obliged to lean her against a tuft of reeds

and will thus take away from the figure her extreme lightness."

Considering the fact that the National Gallery's Bust of Diana

is the only known marble version on which the strap appears

and that the work is of very high quality, it seems most probable that it is identical with the bust exhibited in the Salon of

1777 and drawn by Saint-Aubin. Houdon may have signed and

dated the bust the year after its exhibition, for there are other

instances, such as his bronze statue of Apollo (cat. 37), in which

he postdated his sculptures.

ANN E L. POULET

PROVENANC E

Comte Marcellin de Fresnes by 1879 (^e ^s I&79> 186; Vitry 19073,12; Bapst

1915,10); bequeathed to the comtesse Greffuhle (1860-1952) before 1907

(de Cosse Brissac 1991,131-132, cites the unpublished memoirs of the countess and quotes an undated letter sent to her by the comte de Fresnes: "Je

lègue à la comtesse Greffulhe, née Caraman-Chimay, le plus bel objet de

Houdon, la première pensée de la Diane. Elle seule est digne de la posséder"); in thé collection of the comtesse Greffulhe at least until 1936, and

possibly until her death (NGA archives, letter of 4 Jan. 1936, Princess A. de

Caraman Chimay to Andrew Mellon: "I want you to know of a great masterpiece—of the French eighteenth century, a bust of Diane by Houdon—

which has always been in the possession of an old French family. The owner,

Countess Greffuhle, born Princess de Caraman Chimay—would part with

it"; and letter of 9 Jan. 1936, Andrew Mellon declining to purchase it); Wildenstein & Co., 1955-1957; purchased by the National Gallery of Art in 1957

with funds given by Syma Busiel.

EXHIBITION S

Probably Paris, Salon cat. 1777, 45, no. 248; Washington 1976,192, 378,

no. 335.

REFERENCE S

"Exposition au Salon du Louvre des peintures, sculptures et autres ouvrages

de Messieurs de l'Académie royale en 1777," Mercure de France [1777],

1104-1105 (Deloynes X, no. 191); Bachaumont 1780,11:43, letter 3, 22 Sept.

1777; Montaiglon and Duplessis 1855,179,183; Délerot and Legrelle 1857,121,

2l8
DECORATIV E SCULPTUR E

Back view of cat. 36

RELATE D WORK S

Marbles

Eighteenth-century documents record one, or possibly two, marble busts

of Diana by Houdon: one in the Salon of 1777, no. 248, and drawn by Gabriel

de Saint-Aubin in his copy of the catalogue (see fig. 2; and Dacier 1909-

1921,4:58); and one under the year 1779 in the list Houdon compiled of his

own works ca. 1784 (Vitry 1907^ 203), no. 60: "Buste en marbre de Dianne."

Although these citations give two different years, they probably refer to the

same bust; in the list of 1784 Houdon often made errors in dating his works.

Two marble busts of Diana, nude and without the strap across her torso,

are mentioned in the literature beginning in the early twentieth century.

Their present whereabouts are unknown:

One is H. 87 cm, signed: "Houdon fecit" (first published in Darl [1906],

1-24). Giacometti is quoted in Journal des chercheurs et curieux (1907),

809-810, as saying it was a portrait of Mlle Audéoud by Houdon and had

belonged to Marie Antoinette and to the baron de Goguelat; exhibited in Paris

1908, 51, no. 130, as from the collection of the comte Mansard de Sagonne.

The provenance, quality, and identification of the sitter have been questioned

in Brière and Vitry 1908,171-173, no. 130; and Roger-Miles 1913,40-41, ill.

The second was published in Réau 1964, 2:12-13 (see pi-

 VI>no

- 5^)» as

formerly in the collection of King Stanislaw Augustus II Poniatowski of Poland;

once having decorated the Bath Pavilion at Lazienki near Warsaw; confiscated

by the Germans in 1940. A replica is in the Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a number of inferior and

certainly not authentic marble busts after Houdon's Diana appeared in sales,

often with a drapery added over the breasts.

125, 232; Clément de Ris, "Musée impérial de l'Ermitage à Saint-Pétersbourg," GBA19 (1879), 186; Jacques Darl, Buste de la Diane de Houdon (Paris,

n.d. [1906]), 1-24; Vitry 19073,10-12; Vitry 1907^ 203, no. 60, under the

year 1779; "La Diane de Houdon," Journal des chercheurs et curieux 15, no.

1149 (30 May 1907), 809-810; no. 1165 (10 Nov. 1907), 690-692; Dacier

1909-1921, 4:58; Lami 1910-1911, 2:419; Léon Roger-Miles, Les Dianes

de Houdon et les caprices de la pudeur esthétique à la fin du XVIIle siècle

(Paris, 1913), 5-6, 24-26, 37, 40-42, ill.; Bapst 1915, 7-10; Giacometti

1918-1919,3:11-22,114; Giacometti 1929,1:178,185,197; 2:188-190; Perry

B. Cott, "A Note on Houdon's Bust of Diana," in Studies in the History of Art

Dedicated to William E. Suida (London, 1959), 364-367, fig. i; Réau 1960,

59, ill. p. 5; "La Chronique des arts," suppl. GBA, no. 1092 (Jan. 1960), 39,

fig. 132; Réau 1964,1:96,157,233-234; 2:12-13,no- 5-E-»

 24> no- 72, pi. VIII;

Arnason 1975,43,108 n. 61,109 n. 68, iio-in n. 98, fig. 103, pi. 39; Anne

de Cosse Brissac, La Comtesse Greffulhe (Paris, 1991), 131-132; NGAcat. 1994,

no, ill.; Scherf 2000, 20, 55 n. 43, fig. 16.

Bronze

Houdon's studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795, under "Figures et Bustes en Bronze," no.

68: "Le buste de Diane, coiffée en cheveux tressés, ornés d'un croissant. Il est

posé sur un piédouche en marbre. H. totale: 29 pouces, 6 lignes [ca. 75 cm]."

Signature on cat. 36

i. The plaster bust of Saint John the Baptist is in the

Schlossmuseum Gotha, where it was sent by Houdon

in 1772. See Schuttwolf 1995,129, no. 44; and the

essay "Etats des Choses" in the present catalogue.

2. See Haskell and Penny 1981,196-198, no. 130,

fig. 102.

3. Bachaumont 1780,11:43.

4. Mercure de France, 1104-1105.

5. Bapst 1915, lo.

6. Dacier 1909-1921,4:58.

7. Bachaumont 1780-1789,11:203, 21 Apr. 1778.

2I9

37

+ Apollo

Cast in September 1788

Bronze on square bronze self-base

H. 213 cm, W. 89 cm, D. 93 cm

Inscribed in wax before casting on proper right side of base: HOUDON F. 1790. / POUR JN. GIRARDOT DE MARIGNY, NEGOCIANT A PARIS.

Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon (inv. 552)

At the time Houdon exhibited his statue of Diana the Huntress

(cat. 35) in his studio in 1778, it was compared to the Apollo

Belvedere (fig. i): "It is the perfection of beauty superior to

nature... that purity of form that announces a celestial being.

Light, svelte, noble, simple, and imposing one would say Diana

herself, the sister of Apollo, that divine Apollon du Vatican, the

only figure on earth who gives us the impression of a god." In

a rather disingenuous response Houdon protested that his

Diana did not approach the quality of the antique Apollo: "What

I say is not from modesty; but I have found that figure [Apollo]

very close to perfection."

Inspired by the Apollo Belvedere, Houdon was to create the

present imposing life-size bronze statue of Apollo as a pendant

to his bronze figure of Diana for the Paris garden of the wealthy

Protestant banker and collector Jean Girardot de Marigny. Girardot must have commissioned the second sculpture soon after

the first was completed, for Houdon recorded a life-size model

of the Apollo under the year 1783 (see Related Works), a year

following the casting of the Diana. The actual casting of the

Apollo did not take place, however, until September 1788, and

the chasing and parination must have taken a long time, for the

base of the bronze, which was cast separately, is dated 1790.

The sculptor was extremely proud of his skills as a bronze

founder. In a mémoire sent to Bachelier on n October 1794,

Houdon wrote that he had devoted himself primarily to two

areas of study: anatomy and the casting of statues in bronze.

He then explained that he was forced to leave the city's foundry

in 1787 and that "in three weeks I bought a house across the

street, I built new furnaces and there I cast my Apollo" Several

important unpublished documents written by Houdon's wife

provide new insight into Houdon's general working method

and vivid technical details concerning the casting of the Apollo:

"19 September 1788. Friday. Day when the material for the

Apollo was melted down. The fire was lit to heat the furnace at

two o'clock in the morning to the temperature necessary for

melting the metal. They began to add the metal at six-thirty in

the morning. They struck the spot to unplug the hole through

which the metal flows to the mold at twelve-thirty. It took thirtyfive seconds to pour the metal and fill the mold." In another

document Mme Houdon lists the materials used for the model

and cast of the Apollo and the lyre, the labor involved, and the

itemized costs. The metal melted for the statue included 62

livres worth of iron and 1,100 livres worth of copper. It is apparent that it was a lost wax cast, for the cost of wax for the figure

221
i. Apollo Belvedere, early Hadrianic period copy of Greek bronze original by

Leochares, marble, Musei Vaticani, Belvedere Courtyard, Rome.

2. Ticket to view new bronze casting ofHoudoris statue of Apollo,

September 1788, Bibliothèque municipale de Versailles.

is listed as "106 livres, 2 sols, 6 d." Houdon used forty sacks

of plaster, half fine and half coarse, for the mold and for the

core material, and he employed M. Getty as an assistant for

making the mold, the wax, the core, and the bronze casts of

both the statue and the lyre. The documents make clear that the

statue and the lyre were cast separately. They also indicate that

the figure was cast in one piece, an important technical advance

for Houdon, considering that the Diana, his first life-size bronze,

was cast in several separate pieces.6

Another indication that the Apollo was cast in one piece

is the fact that Houdon invited the public to come to his studio

to see the work as it had come out of the mold. The Journal

de Paris of 24 September announced, "the i9th of this month,

M. Houdon... cast in bronze a statue of Apollo, six feet high. The

casting was very successful, and the figure has now been

removed from the mold. Those who wish to see it in this state

can send for a ticket, giving their name, at M. Houdon's home,

au Roule, across from the Chapelle de M. Beaujon. One will

gain entrance with this ticket beginning Monday, the 29th

through Saturday [4 October], from 4 to 6 in the afternoon.

Those who have obtained tickets to see the cast, who have kept

them, can use them for themselves and their friends." On a

surviving copy of the ticket (fig. 2) Houdon wrote rather poetically, "Apollo grazes the earth like the sun of which he is the

g

image. " Houdon clearly was pleased with this first bronze cast

in his own foundry and did not hesitate to advertise it. He would

repeat this kind of ticketed theatrical event for the unveiling of

other works of art, such as his bronze Ecorché (cat. 2) in 1790.

The choice of Apollo as the subject for the pendant to Diana

was a natural one. They were brother and sister, one representing the sun, the other the moon. Like Houdon's earlier

statue of Diana, his figure of Apollo is depicted completely nude,

moving forward, with his weight resting on the toes of one foot

and the other foot extended behind him. Both the Diana and

the Apollo turn their heads to their right, while she is balanced

on her left leg, he on his right. Both have idealized, sexually

explicit, smoothly modeled bodies that seem to float forward

rather than run. The sense of movement in each statue is

222
DECORATIV E SC U LPT U R E

enhanced by the strands of hair that flow out behind the heads

as though blown by the wind. These figures form a marked

contrast to Houdon's earlier Priest of the Lupercalia (cat. 5), also

a running figure, in which the artist followed the dynamic style

found in baroque models by Bernini and Coustou.

Although Diana was rarely depicted nude in antiquity, there

were numerous antique precedents for the nude Apollo.

Houdon turned to an obvious classical prototype: the Apollo

Belvedere (fig. i) was one of the most admired of all antique

sculptures. Houdon knew it well, not only from his years of

study in Rome but also through the many copies and prints

available to artists in eighteenth-century France. As early as the

seventeenth century the Apollo Belvedere and the Louvre's

antique Diana the Huntress were thought to be by the same

9

artist and were seen as a pair. Under the influence of FrédéricMelchior Grimm, Houdon was more innovative with the iconography of his Diana, and it became one of his best known and

most frequently reproduced sculptures. While the Apollo, known

only in this single bronze version, follows its antique prototype

more closely, it is also distinctly Houdon's invention. Like the

Diana, the Apollo has a minimum of attributes—only his lyre—

eliminating the drapery and sandals of his classical model. Both

sculptures focus entirely on an idealized anatomy and a lighter,

running pose.

ANN E L. POULET

Alternate view of cat. 37

PROVENANC E

Cast 19 Sept. 1788 (BMV, F 946, D 37533, nos. 242, 243); commissioned as

a pendant to the Diana (cat. 35) by Jean Girardot de Marigny for his private

garden in Paris; listed in his posthumous inventory, 23 Germinal an IV

[12 Apr. 1796] (AN, Min. Cent, étude L, file 802, fol. 5): "Dans le jardin, une

Diane et un Apolon [sic], en bronze, prisés... 1200 livres"; [Lucien-François]

Feuchère père sale (at closing of bronze foundry), Paris, 29 Nov. 1824, under

bronzes: "no. 13 —M. Houdon—Grande statue en bronze de six pieds et

demi de proportion, avec un socle; Cette statue a été faite pour M. Girardot

de Marigny, pour pendant à la Diane du même artiste" (unsold); Feuchère

père, 3rd sale, Paris, 19 Jan. 1829, under bronzes: "no. 40—Apollon. Grande

statue de Houdon, six pieds et demi de proportion, faite en pendant à la

Diane du même artiste, qui est dans la cour de la Bibliothèque royale et qui

vient d'être acheté par le Gouvernement à la vente Houdon. — Nota: Cette

figure est exposée rue Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth, no. 25, dans la cour de la

fabrique de Bronzes (de la Maison Feuchère)"; E. du Sommerard collection

(1883); Leopold Goldschmidt collection (from 1883); by inheritance to the

comte Jean de Pastré and comtesse de Pastré; purchased from them by

Calouste Gulbenkian, 30 Jan. 1927.

EXHIBITION S

Paris, Salon cat. 1791 (withdrawn), 47, no. 221: "Statue d'Apollon de grandeur

naturelle. Appartenant à M. Girardot" (see Scherf 1997, 51-52, 57); Paris

1889 (see Michel 1889, 287); Exposition des arts au début du siècle [exh. cat.,

Société philanthropique] (Paris, 1891), 58, no. 444; Catalogue général officiel.

Beaux-Arts, Exposition centennale de l'art français (i799-i#99J [exh. cat.,

Exposition universelle internationale] (Paris, 1899), 43, no. 100; New York

1999-2000,128-129,

 no

- 61, ill.

223
REFERENCE S

Michel 1889, 287; Vitry 19073, 14-16, ill. p. 15; Paul Vitry, "Jean Antoine

Houdon," L'Art et les artistes 5, no. 10 (Paris, 1909), 67-68, ill.; Lamí

1910-1911,1:430; Giacometti 1918-1919,3:84-86; Giacomerti 1929,1:47,

197, ill. opp. p. 136; Réau 1960, 59-60, ill. p. 8; Réau 1964, 1:99,

 IO2'

223-224,234-235; 2:12, no. 4, pi. I; Gaborit 1975, 243,246; Arnason 1975,

68, 92-93, no n. 94, in n. 101,117 n. 215,118 n. 226,121 n. 2253, fig. 185,

pis. 122,123; Guilhem Scherf, "Jean-Antoine Houdon: Apoll im Wind," in

Duisburg 1989,122-123, no. 39; W. McAllister Johnson, "Visits to the Salon

and Sculptors' Ateliers during the Ancien Régime," GBA120 (July-Aug. 1994),

23, 34 n. 35; Bresc-Bautier 1994, 373-374; Scherf 1997, 51-52, 57; Bailey

2002,155-162, ill. p. 161.

RELATE D WORK S

In the list of his own works that Houdon compiled ca. 1784, he included

a life-size model of the Apollo under the year 1783 without indicating

the medium (Vitry 1907^ 207-208), no. 109: "Modelle d'une statue

d'Apollon, de grandeur naturel." The present location of this model, if it

has survived, is unknown.

Marble medallions

In the Salon of 1777 Houdon exhibited as a pendant to a marble medallion

of Minerva (no. 251) a marble medallion of the Head of Apollo (Apollon repoussé

par le vent) in profile (no. 250): "Plusieurs Portraits, en médaillons de

grandeur naturelle," which was sketched by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (Dacier

1909-1921,4:59). In the 1784 list of his works Houdon includes under the

year 1780, no. 79: "Deux médaillons en marbre représentant Minerve et

l'autre Appollon [sic] repoussé par le vent pour le prince de HolsteinGottorp [later Czar Paul I (reigned 1796-1801)]" (see Vitry 1907^ 205). The

present location of these medallions is unknown.

In Houdon's studio sale, Paris, 8 Oct. 1795,14, under "Figures et Bustes

en marbre," no. 75: "Le Buste d'Apollon, demi-relief en Médaillon de 15

pouces 6 lignes [ca. 39.4 cm] de diamètre" (335 livres). This relief (see cat.

34, fig. 2), thought to be a replica of the Holstein-Gottorp medallion, may

be identical with a marble medallion of Apollo from the collection of FrançoisPierre Gouvy (1758-1815) acquired by the Musée du Louvre from the Gouvy

family in 1979 (inv. RF 3410; see Louvre cat. 1998, 2:431, ill.).

Signature on cat. 37

1. "Letter of Laus de Boissy" and Houdon's reply in

Journal de Paris (14 and 16 Apr. 1778); published in

Réau 1964,1:43-44.

2. See Réau 1964,1:99.

3. BMV, F 946, no. 242: "Le 19 Septembre 1788 vendredi Jour ou l'on a fondue la matière pour Lapollon,

l'on a commencé a mettre le feux pour chaufer le

fourneau au degré qu'il le fau pour mestre la matière

a deux heure du matin. Ion a commencé a mestre

la matière a six heures trente minutte du matin.

Ion a donné le coup pour déboucher le trou par

lequel la matière va au moulle à midi trente minutte,

Et la matière à 'été trente cinq seconde a coullé

pour remplir le moulle."

4.'The statue was mistakenly identified as a sand-cast

bronze in New York 1999-2000,128-129, no. 61, ill.

5. BMV, F 946, nos. 242 bis, 243. Getty was a highly

skilled assistant to Houdon in the founding of bronzes.

It is to him that Houdon referred in his mémoire to

Bachelier in 1794: "it was in my studio that one was

obliged to look for a founder: one took from there a

man of considerable talent, but who had only worked

for me and owed everything to me, to my perseverence, my money, my advice, and my expertise in this

art. He was only a mold maker when he arrived at my

place" (see Réau 1964,1:99). Getty is mentioned again

as having cast in one piece the sixteen-foot bronze

statue of Napoléon, after the model by Houdon for

the monument in Boulogne; see Journal de l'Empire

(21 Dec. 1812), 2.

6. A full technical study has not yet been made of

the Apollo, thus it cannot be confirmed whether or not

the figure was cast in one piece.

7. Journal de Paris, no. 268 (24 Sept. 1788), 1150.

8. BMV, F 946, no. 243 bis: "Apollon rasent

La tere comme Le Soleil dont il est L'image."

9. Haskell and Penny 1981,150-151,198.

224
4- Winter, also called La Frileuse

Dated 1783

White marble with gray veins

H. 145 cm, W. 50 cm, D. 62 cm

Inscribed on front of plinth: HOUDON F. 1783 DONNE AU MUSEE-FABRE PAR

M! CREUZE DE LESSER, PREFET DE L'HERAULT. 1828

Musée Fabre, Montpellier, Gift of Creuzé de Lesser, Préfet de l'Hérault, 1828 (inv. 828-5-1)

Dated 1787

Bronze

H. 144.8 cm

Inscribed on plinth: HOUDON. F. 1787

Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Kate Trubee Davison, 1962 (inv. 62.55)

38-40

* Summer

Dated 1785

White marble, with a few brown veins (fragment of marble added for drapery behind left foot)

H. 155 cm, W. 52 cm, D. 48 cm

Inscribed on front of plinth: HOUDON F! 1785 DONNE AU MUSEE-FABRE PAR

M! CREUZE DE LESSER, PREFET DE L'HERAULT. 1828

Musée Fabre, Montpellier, Gift of Creuzé de Lesser, Préfet de l'Hérault, 1828 (inv. 828-5-2)

The person who commissioned the two Montpellier marbles,

Summer and Winter (also called La Frileuse), is less famous than

the two statues. Anne-Charles Modenx de Saint-Wast, son of

an artillery commissioner, purchased a position as conseiller

secrétaire du Roi in 1762, with funds he acquired as receiver

general in Paris and director general of domains in Poitiers.

Saint-Wast and his opulent home on rue Saint-Honoré were

described by a great-nephew: "M. de Saint-Waast... was an

excellent man, unaffected, cheerful, witty, generous, with a love

for magnificence, but with taste and discernment. I have never

encountered in any palace a richer and more elegant luxury

than that in the salon of the house he had built overlooking the

Tuileries. In his library he had the famous Frileuse, which

Houdon had done for him." Although Summer is not mentioned, it must have been there, for the comte d'Angiviller,

director of the Bâtiments du Roi, assured Houdon in June 1785:

"I will do whatever possible, the first time I go to Paris, to drop

by your studio and see the two marble figures there that you

are to deliver to the owner before you leave [for America]."

Summer and Winter were conceived in 1781, according to

Houdon's list of 1784. A terracotta sketch in Montpellier already

displayed, in its exquisitely small dimensions, the essential

features of the composition for Winter (fig. i): a shivering girl,

nude, wrapped in a large shawl that covers her head. She leans

against a tree (the future statue's support) and stands beside a

container of water that appears to have been split by freezing

temperatures (fine incisions mark the cracks that will be carved

in the marble). Houdon planned to exhibit his marble of

Winter at the Salon of 1783 (it is dated the same year); but the

catalogue mentions it as being on view in his studio. He wanted

to present marble reductions of the two statues at the Salon of

1785 (Summer, dated 1785, was completed, and the two large

marbles presumably already delivered to Saint-Wast). Yet

because he was not yet an officer in the Académie royale,

Houdon was subject to the decisions of the jury; and as JeanBaptiste Pierre, director of the academy, informed d'Angiviller:

"Two small, half-size figures by M. Houdon were brought in:

one, which is draped, is not wonderful, the other might not pass

225
cat.38
CAT. 39
CAT.40
DECORATIV E SCULPTUR E

i. Houdon,

La Frileuse, 1781,

terracotta, Musée

Fabre, Montpellier.

because of the kind of nudity it displays. A completely nude

figure is less indecent than those draped with false modesty. I

made a drawing of it... so that you can decide. Let me observe,

however, that this figure is the better of the two and that it could

be hidden away in a corner." D'Angiviller replied: "Regarding

the two half-size figures of M. Houdon, I yield entirely to what

the academy will decide about them. Perhaps, indeed, placing the

one that is a bit nude in a corner will fend off the objection you

raise." In the end, the works were not shown and did not even

appear in the catalogue. A well-informed critic remarked: "It's

a pity that, in taking several of his other works away from us,

the academy's committee has kept us from knowing those he

rendered so well."

It was not until the Salon of 1791, open to all artists, that

Houdon was able to show the bronze of his Frileuse (cat. 39).

That work, dated 1787, had been purchased by the duc d'Orléans.

Houdon was proud of it and listed it alongside his Diana as

g

among the masterpieces produced by his foundry. The critics

at the Salon indulged in some irony: "La Frileuse by M. Houdon

does not seem to achieve its effect. When someone is really

cold, he tries to pull all his limbs close to him and covers his

body more than his head. Nevertheless, it is pleasant to the

eye and the proportions are correct"; "It appears that M.

Houdon wanted to exercise all his talent only on a beautiful

backside. Why, therefore, is this figure turned in such a way

that we cannot see anything? Moreover, one must concur that

winter would be a very desirable season if pretty shivering

9

girls did not cover themselves in any other way."

At the Salon of 1793 the sculptor displayed a terracotta of

his Frileuse (presumably the one acquired by the Louvre in 1946;

see fig. 2). Significantly larger than the Montpellier version, she

is depicted entirely nude, a key variant that links her to other

female figurines of the same period (by Clodion, Jacques-Edme

Dumont, Joseph-Charles Marin, Augustin Pajou, and so on),

despite its deliberately sketchy character. A modern critic

describes: "the little head leaning to one side, with a gesture

more winning than shivery, with her somewhat rascally features, her revolutionary hairstyle with little curls and cascading

locks." Tool marks were intentionally left visible on the clay,

a modeling technique that involved eliminating material,

and could evoke the process of carving a marble block. This

technique is also seen to some extent on the terracotta model

for the Golitsyn tomb at the Louvre (cat. 57).

The Frileuse quickly became famous, and Houdon did many

variations of it in different materials and sizes (see Related

Works). But his friend Mme Bordier wrote a letter in 1794 that

2. Houdon, La Frileuse, 1793 (?), terracotta, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

229
j. Houdon, Summer,

after 1782, marble,

Musée Nissim de

Camonâo, Pans.

4. Etienne-Maurice

Falconet, Winter,

1763-1771, marble,

The State Hermitage

Museum, St. Petersburg.

brought up the problem of counterfeits, which was then the

sculptor's central preoccupation: "I am very interested in that

little Frileuse... .No one owns the piece. Houdon did not put it

up for sale until after getting funds to cover in part the damage

done him by forgeries... .Be wary of the servants: for a few louis,

they allow things to be recast in the absence of the masters. This

misfortune has already befallen him."12

Although Houdon did not do a bust of his Frileuse, he did

produce one of Summer (this is understandable, as the face is

not lowered). A beautiful bust in plaster is dated 1782—three

years before the date inscribed on the marble statue. Both

models for Winter ana Summer were conceived in 1781, as noted

on Houdon's autograph list of 1784. For unknown reasons,

perhaps the pressure of other commitments, Houdon seems

to have been content to execute a bust after his model of

Summer while waiting to complete his full-size marbles in 1783

and 1785. The marble in the Musée Nissim de Camondo (fig. 3)

seems to be an autograph replica after the statue, as it has some

variations (in particular, parted lips).

The great fame of Houdon's allegorical figures of Summer

and Winter derives in large part from the originality of their

treatment. Winter departs strikingly from the images of maturity or old age in the iconography manuals of Cesare Ripa (translated into French in the mid-i6oos), Honoré Lacombe de Prezel

(1756), and Jean-Baptiste Boudard (1759). In fact, the only point

of agreement is the head covering. The idea of using the figure

of a young girl was first explored by Etienne-Maurice Falconet,

whose statue of Winter (fig. 4) was conceived for Mme de Pompadour in 1763 but, after her death, was executed in marble for

Catherine II (it is dated 1771). Houdon did not see Falconet's

statue, but several Russians living in Paris (the Golitsyns and

Stroganovs) or travelers (such as Diderot) may have described

the work, which was displayed in Catherine's home. The motif

of the vessel broken by freezing water is seen in both Houdon's

and Falconet's statues. But whereas Falconet amply draped his

figure in the classical style, Houdon mischievously undressed

her, transforming her into a shivering callipygian girl. This audacious interpretation of the subject—bestowing a naturalness

on a goddess, who thus becomes humanly desirable—shocked

Pierre and the Académie royale but delighted art lovers.

Houdon's depiction of Summer was also inventive. To be

sure, the young girl, like any Ceres, holds a sickle and sheaves

of wheat. But she also boasts a watering can, a practical and

modern addition. With a kerchief on her head, and flowers

and wheat in her hair, she is more of a smart-looking gardener

230
DECORATIV E SCULPTUR E

5. Houdon, Ceres or Winter, 1781, plaster, château de Maisons.

than the sister of Jupiter. At her feet are flowers and fruits (grape,

apple, pomegranate) as well as a tambourine, a symbol of

celebration. Her watering can, alluding to the source of life,

counterposes the frozen urn of Winter. This image of Summer

is the opposite of the majestic Ceres that Houdon conceived at

the same time for the comte d'Artois' dining room at Maisons

(fig. 5). That Ceres does not represent Summer but Winter,

lifting a veil (which evokes her mourning for her daughter, Proserpine) to reveal a wreath of wheat sheaves on her head, a promise of earth's awakening after the long winter's sleep.

The ravishing statue of Summer is done in a bold style, especially in back, where sheaves of wheat are covered by drapery that

is carved in sharp pleats. The bearing of the head is elegant,

with the scarf caressing her neck and brushing against her bare

left breast. Her youthful face is one of Houdon's signatures —

round and fully rendered—and the eyes, treated in his usual

manner, give the allegorical figure a very real presence. The

attitude of Winter is different: whereas Summer looks proudly

in front of her, the famous Frileuse, her shoulders hunched,

stares at the ground. One has to crouch to perceive her pretty

face, set within billowing waves of fabric. The eyes are lowered,

the lips closed, but with her round cheeks and broad forehead,

this is truly the twin sister of the gardener. The tree trunk and

urn were indispensable for supporting the weight of the marble figure, but the bronze at the Metropolitan is free of these

accessories and thus possesses a far lighter effect, while the

quality of the casting and chasing is superb, exemplifying

Houdon's mastery of the art of bronze.

GUILHE M SCHERF

PROVENANC E

4- Winter—Musée Fabre 4-

Model included on Houdon's autograph list (ca. 1784) under the year 1781:

"modelle d'une frileuse représentant l'hiver pour être exécuté en marbre

sur quatre pieds de haut" (Vitry 19070, 206, no. 93); marble displayed in

Houdon's studio at fringes of the Salon of 1783: "Une jeune fille en marbre

de grandeur naturelle exprimant le froid, surnommée la Frileuse. Elle est

chez l'auteur à la Bibliothèque du Roi" (after no. 251). Commissioned by

Anne-Charles Modenx de Saint-Wast, Paris (1709-1790); inherited by his

widow, Catherine-Claire Creuzé; then her nephew and godson, AugustinFrançois Creuzé (1771-1839), prefect of Hérault in 1817, named hereditary

baron of Lesser in 1818, who donated the statue, along with its companion

piece, Summer (cat. 40), to the Musée Fabre at its opening in 1828: "il a eu

l'extrême bonté de les faire venir de Paris pour les offrir au Musée, dont elles

sont un des principaux ornemens" (Notice, 1828, 69).

4- Winter—The Metropolitan Museum of Art 4-

Created in Houdon's foundry in 1787. Collection of the duc d'Orléans:

"Bronze. Jeune Fille exprimant le froid, ou la frileuse. Appartenant à M.

d'Orléans" (withdrawn catalogue for Salon of 1791, no. 222; see Scherf 1997,

57); and in Houdon's mémoire to Bachelier, u Oct. 1794: "Le bronze de la

Frileuse était à feu d'Orléans"; confiscated during the Revolution (Houdon

took it to the warehouse the same day as the small marble Diana belonging

to Lefevre d'Ormesson de Noyseau): "Orléans condamné. Une frileuse en

bronze, par Houdon 4 pieds % de haut environ (nota: elle a été apportée au

dépôt par le citoyen Houdon) [in margin:] Le 17 Prairial [an II] [5 June 1794]

Ministère] de l'Intérieur " (AN, Fi7* 372, fol. 69 ["Registre Naigeon"]).

Perhaps Forbin-Janson collection sale, Paris, 2 May 1842, no. 82: "statue

en bronze grandeur nature. La Frileuse, coulée d'un seul jet et d'une belle

exécution" (1,300 francs); Collot sale, Paris, 16 Jan. 1844,no- 52 (^5° francs).

23I
Back view of cat. 38

Signature on cat. 38

tant une Frileuse"; French Painting and Sculpture of the Eighteenth Century

[exh. cat, The Metropolitan Museum of Art] (New York, 1935-1936), no.

in, ill.; Worcester 1964, 96-101, ill.; Frankfurt 1999-2000, no. 85.

4 Summer—Musée Fabre 4-

Paris 1937, no. 1041, pi. 131; Les Chefs d'œuvre du musée de Montpellier [exh.

cat, Musée de l'Orangerie] (Paris, 1939), no. 178.

REFERENCE S

4 Winter and Summer—Musée Fabre 4

Notice des tableaux et autres objets exposés au Musée Fabre de Montpellier

(Montpellier, 1828), 68-69, nos. 337-338; Quatremère de Quincy 1834,

397; Notice des tableaux et autres objets exposés au Musée Fabre de la ville de

Montpellier (Montpellier, 1839), 120, nos. 520-521; Délerot and Legrelle

1857,119,179-180; Montaiglon and Duplessis 1855,265,443; Gonse 1904,

266-267, ilk Souvenirs du baron de Frénilly, pair de France (1768-1828), intro.

Collection of Richard Seymour Conway, fourth marquess of Hertford

(1800-1870), and installed on garden terrace at the château de Bagatelle

(photograph by Marville, ca. 1860, unpaginated album at BNEst; see Goldsmith Phillips 1963, fig. 7; and Cecil 1965, fig. 14); bequeathed to his

illegitimate son, Sir Richard Wallace (1818-1890), who placed the statue

in his entrance hall (posthumous inventory, 13-14 Aug. 1890; Archives

de Paris, D 48 E 3/76); by inheritance to his wife, Lady Wallace; bequeathed

to Sir John Murray Scott (1834-1912; her husband's secretary and her

advisor), at the "Grande Galerie," 2 rue Laffite, Paris (see his posthumous

inventory, 16 Feb. 1912, in WCA; the author wishes to thank Robert Wenley

for this reference); acquired after his death by Galerie Jacques Seligmann,

Paris; sold to New York banker Henry P. Davison in 1917; bequeathed by

Mrs. Kate Trubee Davison to the Metropolitan in 1962 (inv. 62.55).

4 Summer—Musée Fabre 4

Model included on Houdon's autograph list (ca. 1784) under the year 1781:

"Modelle d'une autre figure pour faire pendant [to the Frileuse] représentant

l'été" (Vitry 19070, 206, no. 94); marble completed in 1785; Houdon's mémoire

to Bachelier, u Oct. 1794: "Une Frileuse et l'Eté, grandeur naturelle, en marbre, à un particulier." Subséquent provenance the same as for Winter.

E XH IBITION S

4 Winter-Musée Fabre 4

Paris 1937, no. 1041, pi. 131.

4 Winter—The Metropolitan Museum of Art 4 4

Paris, second edition of Salon cat 1791, no. 788: "Figure de bronze, représen- Back view of cat. 39

232
DECORATIV E SCULPTUR E

and notes by Arthur Chuquet (Paris, 1909), 5; Joubin 1926, nos. 936-937;

Giacometti 1929, 1:58, ill.; 2:249-250, 253-254, ill.; Vitry 19373, nos.

30-31, pi. 29; Réau 1964,1:238-245,2:14, nos. 9-10, pis. 12 (9A), 14 (loC);

Arnason 1975, 67-68, figs. 142-143, pi. 8ia; Bajou 1989, 29, figs. 8-9.

•f Winter—The Metropolitan Museum of Art 4-

Délerot and Legrelle 1857,179; The Connoisseur (Aug. 1910), 231, ill.; Réau

1922,383-384; Giacometti 1929,2:253 and 256; Cecil 1950,172; John Goldsmith Phillips, "Monsieur Houdon's Frileuse," The Metropolitan Museum of

Art Bulletin 22 (1963); Cecil 1965, 458, fig. 6; Réau 1964,1:241-242, 2:14,

no. 10, pi. 16; Arnason 1975, 68, pi. 8ob, 82-84; Thomine 1997,126,130;

Scherf 1997, 57.

RELATE D WORK S

Winter—same size

Terracotta

Houdon's studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795, no. 91: "Une jeune fille, la tête et les

épaules couvertes d'une draperie, le reste du corps nu. Ce joli morceau connu

sous le nom de la Frileuse, porte 53 pouces de haut [143.1 cm]."

Plasters

Musée du château de Lazienki, Orangerie, Warsaw; H. 148 cm, W. 42 cm,

D. 41 cm; inscribed: "HOUDON F. 1783"; reportedly purchased by Stanislaw

Augustus II Poniatowski directly from the artist's studio (letter from

Marcello Bacciarelli to the king, dated 9 Nov. 1784, Bibliothèque nationale

de Varsovie, inv. 3291/1, no. 38; written communications from Grazyna Bastek

in 1993 and Krystyna Stasiak in 2002). See Dariusz Kaczmarzyk, Rzezba

europejska odXVdo XXwieku. Katalogzbiorow, Muzeum Narodowe (Warsaw,

1978), no. 108, ill.

Tinted plaster; with cachet de l'atelier, offered in Oct. 1794 by Mme Bordier (friend of Houdon) to M. Commandeur, superintendent (commissaire)

of sales, rue Vieille du Temple; collection of the architect Huvé; his descendants until early 19605 (Réau 1922,385-386; and Réau 1964,1:242-243).

Given by Houdon to Gabriel Le Gouvé, member of the Institut; posthumous inventory (AN, Min. Cent., XXXII, 196,17 Sept. 1812, fol. 24): "dans

une pièce servant de salle à manger.. .la statue en plâtre représentant la

frileuse par houdon"; kept by the Le Gouvé Desvallières family, authenticated in inventories of their estates; H. (with base) 149 cm; with tree trunk;

sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 10 Dec. 1951, no. 47; Galerie Souffrice, Paris (Réau

1964, 2:14 pi. 14, loB; Arnason 1975,114 n. 172); sale, Galerie Robiony, Paris,

20-2i Dec. 1978, no. 66, ill.

Sale of the architect Peyre, 14 Apr. 1823, no. 97 (no dimensions).

From so-called Clodion house, Nancy, found in studio with Clodionesque

Signature on cat. 39

sculptures at the home of ironmonger Leopold Fabert; H. 140 cm; with tree

trunk; Demenge-Cremel collection (Giacometti 1929,2:255); Daniel Brunet

collection (Versailles 1928, no. 73); Palais d'Orsay sale, Paris, 15 Feb. 1978,

no. 57, ill. See Gaston Varenne, "Clodion à Nancy. Ses années d'enfance. Sa

maison et son atelier de 1793 à 1798," Revue lorraine illustrée (1913), 48-49,

64, fig. 23; and Paris 1992, 64.

Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Lugano, since at least 1941; formerly

painted a terracotta color; H. 139.2 cm (with base: 149.3

 cm)¡ cachet de

l'atelier, with tree trunk. See Anthony Radcliflfe, Malcolm Baker, and Michael

Maek-Gérard, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection: Renaissance and Later

Sculpture with Works of Art in Bronze (London, 1992), 292-295, no. 56, ill.

Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (inv. 2722); copy by Godecharle;

H. 146.5 cm, W. 48.5 cm; inscribed on urn: Godecharle^ /1803. Jacques Van

Lennep, Catalogue de la sculpture. Artistes nés entre 1750 et 1882 (Brussels,

1992), 218, ill.

Papier-mâche

Copies made beginning in 1790 at factory of Ludwigslust (south of Schwerin): at Staatliches Museum, Schwerin (terracotta color; H. 143 cm, W. 36.5

cm, D. 51 cm; see Schwerin 2000, 200, ill.); at Schlossmuseum Gotha

(bronze patina; H. 144 cm, W. 42 cm, D. 50 cm; see Schuttwolf 1995,155,

no. 63, ill.); at Weimar: Goethe-Nationalmuseum (white), Schlossmuseum

(rose color; H. 135 cm), and Schloss Tiefurt (white) (see Bogyay 1935, 369);

and at Meermanno-Westreenianum Museum, The Hague (terracotta color;

H. 133 cm; see Marie-Jeanne Cok-Escher, "La Frileuse de Houdon. Un exemple de moulage en papier mâché," in Le Moulage, actes du colloque international, 10-12 Apr. 1987 [Paris, 1988]). Formerly Edmond Courty collection,

Châtillon-sous-Bagneux (Réau 1964, 2:65).

The factory of Ludwigslust was created by Duke Frederick of Mecklenburg (1717-1785) and expanded under Johann Georg Bachmann (1738-

1815); catalogues were printed (Hamburg, 1788; Leipzig, 1789; Liibeck, 1790;

Berlin, 1791), yet production ended in the early nineteenth century and

the molds were broken. Houdon's Frileuse was one of the rare modern

creations, the majority of sculptures copied being classical sculpture and

portrait busts. See Max Kunze, "Répliques d'antiquités provenant de la

cartonnerie de Ludwigslust au XVIIle siècle," in Le Moulage (Paris, 1988).

Boilly paintings

Depicted at the back of the sculptor's studio in both paintings by Boilly (cat.

66), between Diana and the Seated Voltaire.

Winter—reductions

Terracottas

Houdon's studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795, no. 92: "La même figure, de petite

proportion. Haut. 19 pouces [51.3 cm]." Probably half-draped; see abovementioned full-size terracotta.

Musée Fabre, Montpellier (inv. 95.6.1) (fig. i); sketchy, draped figure;

H. 19 cm (with base: 35 cm), W 6 cm, D. 5 cm; sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris,

ii-12 Mar. 1912, no. 168, ill.; collection of marquis de Biron (before his

sale in 1914); Marius Paulme collection (Réau 1922, 381; Versailles 1928,

no. 72, and Paris 1928, no. 81; and Giacometti 1929, 2:206, ill.); his sale,

Paris, 15 May 1929, no. 328, ill; Schoeller collection, Paris, 1929; sale,

George Haviland collection, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 2-3 June 1932,

no. 239, ill.; Marcel Haentjens collection, Galerie Cailleux, Paris, 1934,

no. 141; sale, Palais Galliéra, Paris, 10 June 1970, no. 209, ill.; sale, Hôtel

George V, Paris, 27 Mar. 1995, no. 428, ill.

233
Alternate view of cat. 40

Signature on cat. 40

Musée du Louvre, Paris, acquired in 1946 (inv. RF 2581) (fig. 2) (see

below, note 10; and Louvre cat. 1998, 429, ill.); sketchy, nude figure with

tree trunk; H. 27.4 cm, W. 8.5 cm, D. 8.5 cm; label under base with ink

inscription: "Sculpture exposée en 1793: sous le no. 124"; Mme Alfred

Hachette collection (Versailles 1928, no. 70).

Musée du château Lazienld, Palais Myslevici, Warsaw, acquired in 1951;

inscribed: "HOUDON"; H. 48 cm, W. 15 cm, D. 17 cm; half-draped figure

with small tree trunk (Kaczmarzyk 1978, 63, no. 107, ill.; Arnason 1975,114

n. 172). This work is not at all a sketch.

Plasters (same work may appear several times)

D. Marquereau collection, 1929; examined by Giacometti in 1919: "Of the

same size as the lost-wax bronze in the Louvre, it in fact informs us about

the sculptor's first research for La Frileuse; anticipating as well the important

document in the Louvre, this plaster notes Houdon's very first idea before

the slightest work was pursued" (Giacometti 1929, 2:254).

Provenance of Houdon family; Rochette family; bequest of Raoul

Perrin (great-grandson of the sculptor) to his granddaughter Mme Balagny

(Giacometti 1929, 2:255);

 H

- 8°

 cm

-

Formerly Marius Paulme collection; his sale, 15 May 1929, no. 329, ill.;

H. 53 cm; without tree trunk; remnants of cachet de l'atelier on back.

Marbles (same work may appear in several sales)

Proposed for exhibition and rejected by jury for the Salon of 1785, along with

reduction of Summer.

Paris, Salon cat. 1796, no. 617: "La frileuse. Statue en marbre: hauteur

20 pouces [54 cm]. Cette figure appartient à l'Auteur"; posthumous sale of

contents of Houdon's studio, 15-17 Dec. 1828, no. 62: "Marbre blanc. Copie

réduite de la Frileuse, par M. Houdon."

Peyre sale, 14 Apr. 1823, no. 92: "Une figure en marbre, dite la Frileuse,

par M. Houdon" [réduction?].

Dubois sale, 7 Dec. 1840, no. 91: "Marbre. La Frileuse. Statue deminature d'après Houdon, sur socle en marbre blanc."

Proposed by Lemer for acquisition by the Louvre in autumn 1887, but

rejected (see AMN, S 30 Houdon; and Réau 1964,1:243); H- 55 cm; inscribed:

"Houdon f."; may have corne from Claudine Houdon, the Sand family,

Michel Ephrussi, and thé princesse de Faucigny-Lucinge (Versailles 1928,

no. 74; Paris 1928, no. 82; Réau 19283, 341, calls it "very beautiful"). Sales:

Couvert collection, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 23 May 1950, no. 63, ill.; Hôtel

Drouot, Paris, 13 Dec. 1980, no. 12, ill.; Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 15 Dec. 1982,

no. 23, ill. (inscribed on front of plinth: LA FRILEUSE).

Bronzes

Bequeathed by Mme Houdon to her brother in her will, dated 9 Mar. 1815:

"petite Frileuse en bronze" (BMV, F 945(1], no. 10; Frick 1947, 212).

Sarrazin sale, 8-9 Jan. 1816, no. 122: "Une charmante figure en pied,

de dix-neuf à vingt pouces de haut [51.3 to 54 cm], connue sous le nom de la

petite frileuse: nous sommes autorisés à affirmer que le sujet n'a jamais été

exécuté par l'auteur, que dans deux proportions, celle de grandeur naturelle

et celle-ci, toutes les autres ont été désavouées par l'artiste, et ne sont que des

copies infidèles: ce qui ne laisse pas à hésiter de croire que ce bronze soit bien

le seul original."

Houdon's posthumous sale, 15-17 Dec. 1828; not in catalogue but

mentioned in proceedings of sale (Gandouin 1893-1907, 29): "Frileuse,

petit modèle, bronze"; sold for 230 francs, the highest bid after the mask

of Rousseau (655 francs) and a marble bust of Voltaire (251 francs).

Musée du Louvre, Paris, bequeathed in 1881 (inv. RF 383); JacquesEdouard Gatteaux (after a terracotta sketch in his collection?). Nude figure:

see Paris 1928, no. 80; Masterpieces from the Louvre: French Bronzes and Paintings from the Renaissance to Rodin, Houdon entries by Jean-René Gaborit

[exh. cat., Queensland Art Gallery] (Brisbane, 1988), no. 40; and Louvre cat.

1998,433, ill. Cast by the Réunion des musées nationaux in 1969.

Arnauld sale, 13 Feb. 1925, no. 27: "cire perdue, édition A. Hébrard. H.

26 cm"; the nude and sketchy bronzes by Hébrard are very close to the one

in the Louvre (RF 383). Plaster copies by Medardo Rosso (Rosso Museum,

Barzio; see Burlington Magazine [Dec. 2000], 775, ill.) and Aristide Maillol

(sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 6 June 1932, ill.).

Casts of the figure with an urn from the Barbedienne foundry, marketed beginning 1873 in three heights (1880 cat., 38, lists: 75 cm, 56 cm, and

44 cm) (Réau 1964, 2:14, pi. 16), then in a fourth (1884 cat, 40, offers one

at 28 cm, as do cats, of 1894 and 1900).

Casts of figure with a tree trunk also marketed: Christie's, New York,

13 June 1989, no. 239, ill. (H. 78.74 cm with base); and without support,

like the one at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. See Berman

1974-1977, 2:459,

 no-1809, ill.

234
DECORATIV E SCULPTUR E

Winter—late interpretation

A bronze statue (H. 129 cm); apocryphal inscription "HOUDON"; acquired

ca. 1956 by Berlin museums as autograph variant of Houdon's Frileuse;

fictive provenance from Frederick William II of Prussia (see Heinrich

Zimmermann, "Fine unbekannte Bronze statue Jean Antoine Houdons,"

Berliner Museen. Berichte aus den ehem. Preussischen Kunstsamlungen, n.s.

[Aug. 1956], ill.; and Réau 1964,1:241-242, 2:14, no. 10, pi. 15). There are

countless copies of this statue, and busts of it were also produced. One of

these, H. 58.4 cm, housed at Windsor Castle (inv. RCiN 70145), was cast

by Louis-Stanislas Lenoir-Ravrio (1784-1846) (see Jonathan Marsden, "A

Checklist of French Bronzes in the Royal Collection," Apollo [Aug. 2002],

49, no. 82). This bust may be indentified in an inventory of 1812 (written

communication from J. Marsden). These objects, sometimes given other

attributions (Clodion, Marin, so on), were widely reproduced and circulated

(see Berman 1974-1977, 2:451, no. 1782, ill.); they have nothing to do with

Houdon's work.

Summer—reductions

Marble proposed for exhibition and rejected by jury for the Salon of 1785,

along with marble reduction of the Frileuse.

Barbedienne bronzes, marketed beginning in 1873 (Réau 1964, 2:14,

pi. 12, 9b; Berman 1974-1977, 3:582, no. 2129, ill.). The 1894 catalogue

offered four heights (78 cm, 62 cm, 46 cm, and 30 cm).

Summer—busts

Houdon's studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795, no. 94: "Terre cuite... L'Eté, figurée par

une jeune fille coiffée en cheveux couverts d'un mouchoir, la gorge en

partie couverte d'une draperie. Ce buste est posé sur piédouche en marbre

bleu rurquin. Haut, totale 20 pouces [50.8 cm]."

Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris (fig. 3); marble; H. 40 cm (H. with

base and small pedestal: 47 cm); signed; from collection of the comte de

Vibraye, château of Freschines (Loir-et-Cher); and collection of the comte

Moïse de Camondo. See Giacometti 1929,1:46 ill., 2:193-194; Réau 1964,

2:14, pi. 13; Bertrand Rondot, et al., Musée Nissim de Camondo. Catalogue des

collections (Paris, 1998), 36, no. 165, ill.

Plasters

Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris; painted a terracotta color; H. 40 cm (with

base and small pedestal: 50 cm); cachet de l'atelier buried in plaster on back;

from collection of the comte Moïse de Camondo (Versailles 1928, no. 69;

Paris 1928, no. 22); correctly reattributed "after Houdon" in Rondot 1998,

96, no. 616, ill. p. 93.

Sale, Hôtel George V, Paris, 9 Dec. 1931, no. 139, ill.; Palais Galliéra,

Paris, i Apr. 1974, no. 40, ill.; H. 61 cm. Date uncertain.

London, art market; H. 50 cm (with base: 65.5 cm); base of pink

marble; inscribed along truncation in back: "houdon f. 1782."

1. Favre-Lejeune 1986, 2:974.

2. Saint-Wast's niece married Frédéric-Auguste

Fauveau de Frénilly, and their son offered this description (see Frénilly 1909, 5). See also Adrien Delahante,

Une famille de finance au XVI Ile siècle... (Paris, 1881);

1:384-385, 398-399' 424.470- 494-

3. AN, Oi 1918*, 196: "Je ferai mon possible, la

première fois que j'irai à Paris, pour passer à votre

atelier et y voir les deux figures en marbre que vous

devez livrer au propriétaire avant que de partir."

4. Vitry i9O7b, nos. 93 and 94.

5. Houdon became an officer (assistant professor) only

in 1792.

6. Letters of 9 Aug. and 12 June 1785, in FurcyRaynaud 1906,126.

7. "Observations sur le Sallon de 1785," in Journal

general de France (Deloynes XIV, no. 339; MacWilliam

1991,390).

8. Mémoire to Bachelier, n Oct. 1794 (cited in Réau

1964,1:99).

9. Affiches, annonces et avis divers, ou journal général de

France; and La Béquille de Voltaire au Salon (Deloynes

XVII, nos. 449 and 439; MacWilliam 1991,472 and

474)-

10. Pierre Pradel, "Une Petite Frileuse par Houdon,"

Bulletin des Musées de France (1946), 12-13, iU-î

Duisburg 1989,13 [Houdon entries by Guilhem

Scherf]. Réau 1964,1:242, adds: "The style of little

curls and cascading locks represents the fashion

of the Revolution."

11. Giacometti 1929,1:129.

12. Letter dated 15 Oct. 1794, in Réau 1922, 385-386.

13. See also the essay "Houdon, Above All Modern

Artists,'" at the beginning of the present catalogue.

14. The watering can elicited Stendhal's jibes in

Mémoires d'un touriste, voyage dans le midi, rev. éd.

(Paris, 1981), 3:139.

2

35

Le Baiser donné

Dated 1778

White marble with small gray inclusions on separate white marble base

H. 37 cm (with base: 47 cm), W. 38.4 cm

Inscribed on truncation of woman's proper right arm: HOUDON F. 1778.

Collection of Stewart and Lynda Resnick

Le Baiser donné, or The Kiss Given, is arguably Houdoris most

erotic work. A youthful man with idealized features affectionately bends over his lover, who receives his kiss with abandon,

her pearl-laced hair in disarray and one of her breasts exposed.

The pair is visually bound together by a wreath of roses, the

traditional flower of love, and an encompassing drapery, under

which the man seems to hold the woman in tender embrace.

Because of its delicate rendering, graceful arrangement, and

romantic expression, this sculpture became extremely popular

among private collectors, leading to a multitude of copies both

by Houdon's studio and later imitators. The present marble

is distinguished by the outstanding quality of its carving, the

brilliance of its surface, and the beautiful striated finishing of

the back.

Although Houdon listed Le Baiser in the inventory of his

own works under the years 1779 and 1780, its origin now can

be traced to before the summer of 1772, when the sculptor

sent a finished version in plaster to the duke of Saxe-Gotha

in Germany; in the accompanying letter he proudly explained:

"The Couple of Lovers, or Reciprocal Kiss, is a group with two

heads, half life-size. These heads are united in such a way that

they rest on one single base." The invention of placing two

busts on one shared stand seems to have been without precedent and was admired by Houdon's contemporaries. The conception of Le Baiser donné in the early 17708 coincides with

an experimental period in Houdon's career, when, under the

influence of his experience in Rome, he explored a variety of

subjects and styles, from the anatomical realism of the Ecorché

and monumental austerity of the Saint Bruno (cats, i and 4)

to the baroque expressionism of the Priest of the Lupercalia (cat.

5) and "têtes d'expressions" such as La Petite Lise (The State

Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg). With Le Baiser donné

Houdon created a showpiece in yet another genre, proving again

his technical skills and combining the observation of nature

with the idealization found in classical art, as was his credo.

Although there was a general fashion for kiss-related themes

in the poetry, drama, and fine arts in mid-eighteenth-century

France, Le Baiser donné is not related to any specific story or

4

model but rather was the sculptor's conscious reinterpretation

of an established rococo subject.

A comparison with François Boucher's painting of Hercules

and Omphale (fig. i) reveals how Houdon transformed a powerfully erotic scene into a subtle neoclassical composition by

using restraint and drawing directly from his knowledge of

237

4i
i. François Boucher, Hercules and Omphale, ça. 1731-1734, oil on canvas, Pushkin Museum, Moscow.

antique prototypes. The head of the male lover, with his short,

curly hair, here tied with a ribbon, and his classical features,

recalls that of the Morpheus (cat. 7), the model of which

Houdon exhibited in the Salon of 1771. In its overall form as

well as in its sentiment and charm Le Baiser donné is closest

to the famous sculpture of Cupid and Psyche, a Roman copy

of a late Hellenistic work (fig. 2). Described as the "graceful

group of a man and woman tenderly embracing," the latter

was accessible in the Capitoline Museum in Rome when

Houdon was a student there and was widely admired and

reproduced during the eighteenth century. Houdon, who

copied the Capitoline Pandora for his statue of the Vestal and

possibly a Centaur in the same collection, was doubtless familiar with—and probably inspired by—the Cupid and Psyche.

In the late 17703 Houdon returned to Le Baiser donné, then

also known as Le Baiser de Marc Antoine et Cléopâtre or L'Amour

et l'amitié, and started a veritable mass production in différent

sizes and materials. Especially popular were the reduced versions in bronze that, mounted on a choice of colored and elaborately decorated pedestals, increasingly appeared in the sales.

Houdon created a companion piece called Le Baiser rendu, or

The Kiss Returned, which is recorded in the inventory of his own

works under the year 1780, in addition to a model of the group

Kiss of a Bacchante a year earlier. Although probably reflected

in a sculpture of a female bacchante kissing a horned faun, no

authentic version of this group is known. Since already the eighteenth-century sales catalogues and inventories distinguish—

in attribution as well as in price—between "Le Baiser by

238
DECORATIV E SCULPTUR E

2. Roman, Cupid and

Psyche, copy of a late

Hellenistic work of the

second or first century

EC, marble, Capitoline Museum, Rome.

Houdon" and "a similar subject as pendant," the identification

of Le Baiser rendu remains elusive.

Houdon's Baiser donné was owned by some of the most

distinguished collectors in Paris of that time, including the

notorious Louis-Philippe-Joseph d'Orléans, known as Philippe

Egalité, who as duc de Chartres commissioned a marble from

Houdon in 1779 (see Related Works). He kept it in his rooms

in the Palais Royal, where it was seized by the revolutionary

Commission conservatrice des monuments on 12 November

9

1793, only six days after the duke's execution. The wealthy

banker and arts patron Jean Girardot de Marigny (see cats. 35

and 37) possessed both variants of the group, which are listed

in the inventory after his death as "a group in white marble

known under the title Baiser by Loudon [sic] and a similar subject as a pendant, also in white marble, with a bleu turquin

marble socle, valued at 400 livres." In 1785 Houdon even

put a marble version of Le Baiser, along with other busts, on the

market in the young United States, where it was considered "too

voluptuous" and did not sell for fifteen years.11

ULRIK E D. MATHIES

PROVENANC E

Acquired in 1983 from Black-Nadeau Ltd., London.

REFERENCE S

Lami 1910-1911, 421; Giacometti 1918-1919, 3:5-9; Giacometti 1929, 2:

185-187; Réau 1964,1:247-248; 2:22, no. 54, pi. 36; Arnason 1975,37, fig.

86, pi. 33; Black and Nadeau 1979, no. 28, ill.

RELATE D WORK S

Marbles—documented versions

Houdon's 1784 inventory of his own works: "En 1779, No. 51 bis. Un groupe

en marbre représentant un baisé pour Mr le duc de Chartre [Louis-PhilippeJoseph, later duc d'Orléans (1747-1793)], No. 68. Un groupe de baisé

d'une bacante. Modelle pour être exécuté en marbre 1780 [78.] Deux

groupe de marbre représentant le baisé donné et l'autre rendu, exécuté

plusieurs fois en marbre" (Vitry 1907^ 202, 204).

Other marbles were owned by Jean Girardot de Marigny (1733-1796)

(see text above) as well as by the émigré Belizard, listed in the unpublished

inventory of objects seized by the revolutionary Commission temporaire

des arts, 19 Ventôse an III [9 Mar. 1795], 180, no. 41: "le buste en un groupe

de Marc-Antoine et Cléopatre en marbre blanc sur un pied idem à panneaux de vert antique à socle bleu turquin le tout de 30 pouces [76.2 cm]

(Oudon)" ("Registre des réceptions des objets d'art et antiquités trouvés

chez les émigrés et condamnés... "; AN, Fr/*-23.A).

Marbles—sales

[De Boynes], 15 Mar. 1785, 61, no. 118; [Dennoor], 14 Mar. 1797, no. 107;

H[albou], 10 Apr. 1809, no. 86; [Lucien-François] Feuchère père, 29 Nov.

1824, no. 246; Marquis d'Aligre, 20 Nov. 1848; 16 Jan. 1882, no. i; 9 Feb.

1884, no. 51; Strauss, 7 Feb. 1890, nos. 1-2; 15 Dec. 1890, no. no; 20 Feb.

1891, no. 96; Mühlbacher, 15-17 May 1899, no. 405-406.

Back view of cat. 41

239
Marbles—extant

Private collection, New York [Wildenstein]; H. 47 cm; inscribed on truncation of woman's proper right arm: "HOUDON F. 1778"; acquired with the

companion piece, Le Baiser rendu, dated 1780 and signed "Houdon," although

not executed by him; both pieces possibly identical with the marbles sold at

Strauss sale, 7 Feb. 1890, nos. 1-2, supposedly ordered from Houdon by the

duc de Luynes and bequeathed to the duc de Narbonne; Mühlbacher sale,

15-17 May 1899, no. 405-406; J. Pierpont Morgan collection, New York.

Present location unknown; dated 1774; offered by M. Bergerat, Paris,

to the Musée du Louvre in 1843 (Vitry I9o8b, 33); later Pierre David-Weill

collection (Réau 1964, 2:22).

Bronzes—sales up to Houdon's death

[Blondel d'Azincourt], 10 Feb. 1783,85, no. 319; [Galonné], 21 Apr. 1788,100,

no. 285; [Galonné], n May 1789, 51-52, nos. 182 and 185; Dubois de Courval, ii May 1789,25, no. 114; [Tricot], 22 May 1793, no. 194; [Munier], 6 May

1795,18-19, no. 57; Saint-Martin, 7 May 1806,85; Amman de Schwanberg,

19 Dec. 1809, no. 139; Lange, 2 Aug. 1814, no. 25; [Paillet], 13 Nov. 1816,

no. 45; Daval, 18 Mar. 1822, no. 185; Laforgue, 5 May 1824, no. 90.

Plasters

Present location unknown; in the collection of the comte de Saint-Léon,

Paris, 1918-1919 (Giacometti 1918-1919, 3:8-9).

Sale, 25 Nov. 1850, no. 30: "Un plâtre représentant le Baiser d'Houdon

avec son cachet."

Terracottas—sales

Houdon's studio sale, 8 Oct. 1795,16-17,no- 95: "Le Baiser, groupe de deux

figures vues à mi-corps, posée sur piédouche en marbre blanc; hauteur totale

17 pouces [43.2 cm]."

Duchesne aine, 25 May 1855, no. 164; 15 Jan. 1873, no. 84; Prince Paul

Golitsyn, 10 Mar. 1875,

 no

-

 IO2î 4 APr

-

1&&1> no

- 62;

 :5 Oct

- rô^, no. 151;

8 May 1886, no. 98.

1. An upsurge in the number of Baiser sculptures sold

at auction in the second half of the nineteenth century

indicates the ongoing production after Houdon's

death.

2. See Appendix in the present catalogue, lines 304-307.

3. [De Boynes] sale, 15 Mar. 1785, 61, no. 118: "[Le

buste] est remarquable par sa belle exécution & l'idée

ingénieuse d'avoir vaincu la difficulté de former un

grouppe de deux têtes posées sur le pied d'ouche du

buste ordinaire."

4. Réau 1964,1:247,

 and Arnason 1975, 37, saw a

connection to Jean de La Fontaine's tale of "Le baiser

rendu," which, however, shares only the similarity

of title.

5. See Les Amours des dieux. La Peinture mythologique de

Watteau à David [exh. cat., Grand Palais] (Paris, 1992),

276-283^0.42,111.

6. Haskell and Penny 1981,189-191, no. 26, fig. 98.

7. Among others by the Manufacture de Sèvres in

1769; see'Bourgeois and Lechevallier-Chevignard 1914,

no. 48, pi. 12.

8. [Calonne] sale, n May 1789, 51, no. 182: "Le baiser,

par M. Houdon, bien ciselé £ doré au mat, sur socle de

marbre" (126 livres); 52, no. 185: "Un grouppe de deux

figures, couleur antique, faisant pendant au baiser de

M. Houdon" (48 livres). See also Girardot de Marigny,

posthumous inventory, 23 Germinal an IV [12 Apr.

1796] (AN, Min. Cent., étude L, file 802, fol. 62);

and sale, 19-20 Jan. 1844, no. 12: "Deux groupes en

bronze—Le Baisser d'Houdon, et nymphe embrassant

un sartyre, sur fûts de colonne en marbre"; sale, 4 Dec.

1876, no. 131: "Baiser de Houdon"; no. 132: "Autre

Baiser—pendant du précédent."

9. See "Procès verbaux de la commission des

monuments," NAAF, 3rd ser., 18, (Paris, 1903),

231-232, no. 44.

10. AN, Min. Cent., étude L, file 802, fol. 62: "item un

groupe en marbre blanc connu sous le titre du baiser

par Loudon [sic] et un pareil sujet pour pendant, aussi

en marbre blanc avec piédouche bleu turquin prisé

quatre cents livres...400 l[ivres]."

11. In 1785 estimated to be 50 louis; the price had been

reduced to 35 louis, or 840 francs, by Nov. 1801, when

the eventual buyer, Major Charles Pinckney, had to be

admonished to pay Houdon (BMV, F 946, nos. 33-35,

37-38,43, 49, and 74).

240
* Head of a Negress

Probably 1781

Plaster painted black to resemble patinated bronze, on modern painted wood base

H. (with base) 32 cm, W. 21 cm

Musée municipale Ancienne Abbaye, Saint-Léger, Soissons (inv. 93.7.2766)

This striking Head of a Negress is an unusual work in Houdon's

oeuvre. Originally a full bust with a truncation under the breasts

and through the top of the arms (fig. i), it was damaged in an air

raid in 1918, and only the head survived. Probably identical with

a "Bust of a Negress in plaster, imitating antique bronze," shown

at the Salon of 1781, it is associated with a fountain figure of a

Negress, one of the sculptor's most original compositions.

Houdon enjoyed growing critical success in the course of the

17705, working for the courts of Germany and Russia and

becoming a full member of the Académie royale de peinture et

de sculpture in 1777, yet he had not received a single French

royal commission. In January 1779 he proposed to Jean-Baptiste Pierre, director of the Académie royale and premier peintre

du Roi, that he execute for the crown a marble "figure of a Bather,

life-size, and another figure in lead, of the same size. The latter would represent an Attendant." The cost was to be 18,000

livres, unless the king supplied the marble, in which case the

cost of the marble would be deducted. At the same time, the

sculptor offered to cast his Diana in bronze for the monarch

for an additional 10,000 livres. D'Angiviller, who seemed to

resent Houdon's entrepreneurial spirit and independence of

the academy, told Pierre, "The prices asked by M. Houdon for

these three figures seem to me to be substantial." The commission was never pursued by the Bâtiments du Roi.

All three figures were to be acquired instead by prominent

Paris collectors. Jean Girardot de Marigny commissioned the

bronze figure of Diana (cat. 35) for his garden, and the king's

cousin, the duc de Chartres (later duc d'Orléans), acquired the

marble bather and her black attendant as fountain figures for

his exotic English garden created by Louis Carrogis, called

4

Carmontelle, at Monceau, near Paris. The sculptures were

installed there by 28 March 1779 when they are recorded in

the caption of an engraving of the garden: "there is a basin

encircled by three steps, where one sees a figure of a woman in

white marble, who is bathing, and a Negress in bronze [sic],

who is pouring water over her body. These two figures are by M.

Houdon." The group was listed in the catalogue for the Salon

of 1783 but was not shown at the Salon itself. In 1787 a guidebook gave a more detailed description of the fountain, specifying that there was "a superb figure in white marble, taking a

bath; behind her, another woman, executed in lead and painted

black, the figure of a Negress holding in one hand a white

marble drapery, and in the other a gold pitcher, from which she

pours water on the body of her mistress."7

241

42

DECORATIV E SCULPTUR E

After voting for the death of the king, the duc d'Orléans was

guillotined himself in November 1793, and his property fell into

neglect and was vandalized. Houdon wrote in his mémoire to

Bachelier in October 1794, "A group: a Bather in marble on

whom a Negress in lead pours water, for the garden of Monceau.

The Negress is in bad shape and needs to be restored." When

a year later the fountain figures were confiscated by the Commission temporaire des arts, the head of the Negress was recorded

9

as missing. The life-size Bather, dated 1782, although it has

suffered from weathering and some losses, has survived and

can now be seen at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fig. 2).

The lead Negress, however, has disappeared. The only record of

it is the present head from Soissons.

As was often Houdon's practice, he must have derived his

Bust of a Negress directly from the full statue; during the same

period, he also carved a Bust of Diana based on the statue (see

cats. 35 and 36). It is evident from the sensitivity with which the

present head is portrayed that Houdon was working from a live

model. The gentle, wistful expression, the large, deeply cut eyes

with the lids half closed, the broad nose and full lips between

which the teeth are visible, all have been carefully observed and

recorded. The tight curls of the hair have been modeled in an

abstract way, without too much attention paid to individual

strands, and the ears are pierced and originally must have had

earrings. An idea of the nude torso can be found in the surviving photographs of the plaster before it was damaged (fig.

i), in which the figure is shown almost to the waist with high

full breasts.

It is probable that Houdon was influenced by garden groups

done for Versailles, particularly that of Apollo and the Nymphs of

Thetis by François Girardon and Thomas Regnaudin, which

provided a prototype for a neoclassical bathing scene with attendants holding ewers from which water is poured (fig. 3). In 1778,

at the same time Houdon was working on his fountain composition, the group by Girardon and Regnaudin was relocated

to a grotto designed by Hubert Robert because of the replanting of trees in the park at Versailles, a project of which Houdon

was surely aware. The life-size standing nymph Choéphore who

pours water from a ewer was moved from the left to the right

of the composition, and Houdon may well have had the opportunity to study it closely. Houdon's invention of a fountain with

one black and one white figure, using the materials themselves

to establish the contrast, is, however, to this author's knowledge, without precedent. Stimulated by the slave trade and

the issues of liberty and equality raised by the American war

3. Houdon, Bust of a Negress, photograph taken before 1918, reproduced in

Réau 1964, vol. 2, pi. xviii, n B 75.

2. Houdon, Bather, 1782, marble, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

243
3- François Girardon and Thomas Regnaudin, Apollo and the Nymphs of Thetis, 1666-1673, white marble figures, gardens of the château de Versailles.

for independence, some portraits of black sitters were painted

and occasionally sculpted in the last quarter of the eighteenth

century in France, but this combination is highly original.

The Bust of a Negress probably remained in Houdon's studio

following its exhibition in 1781. During the Revolution, when the

artist was criticized for not sufficiently manifesting his support

for the Republican cause, he apparently reused the bust in an

entirely new and patriotic context by adding a round base on

which was inscribed: "Rendue à la liberté et à l'égalité par la

Convention nationale le 16 pluviôse, deuxième de la République

française une et indivisible." This was the date of the National

Convention's unanimous vote to abolish slavery in all of the

French colonies. Responding to the same complaint, Houdon

had transformed a statue of Saint Scholastica into a statue of

Philosophy Upholding the Rights of Man and the Constitution,

which was acquired by the Committee of Public Safety in May

of 1794 and installed in the Palais National in 1795.13

ANN E L. POULET Back view of cat. 42

244
DECORATIV E SCULPTUR E

PROVENANC E

Gift of Auguste Sugot (1818-1888), an engineer and politician in Soissons

who was decorated with the medal of the Legion of Honor, by bequest in

1888; destroyed except for the head and neck in an air raid in 1918.

EXHIBITION S

Probably in Salon cat. 1781,46, no. 264: "Le Buste d'une Négresse en plâtre,

imitant le bronze antique"; Paris 1928, 60, no. 55; Versailles 1928, 44,

no. 76; La Sculpture ethnographique. De la "Vénus hottentote" à la "Tehura" de

Gauguin [exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay] (Paris, 1994), 33-35,70, no. 2, ill. p. 33;

Déclaration des droits de l'homme et Abolition de l'esclavage [exh. cat., Archives

départementales de la Martinique] (Fort de France, 1998-1999), 55, no. 54,

ill. p. 57.

REFERENCE S

Paul Vitry, "Un buste de négresse par Houdon au Musée de Soissons," IMAM

(1897), 351-354, ill. of bust before destruction; Vitry 19313, 7-9, ill; Vitry

i93ib, 307-311; Lami 1910-1911,1:423; Giacometti 1918-1919,1:81; 3:30;

Giacometti 1929,2:196; Réau 1964,1:47, 99,177,236-238; 2:14-15, no. n,

pi. XIX, ii B 75; Arnason 1975, 59,113 n. 153, pi. 65; Paris 1989, 674-675;

Hugh Honour, "From the American Revolution to World War I," in The

Image of the Black in Western Art, ed. Ladislas Bugner (Cambridge, MA, and

London, 1976 — ), 4:34-36, fig. 5; Robert Attal, Le Soissonnais dans tous ses

états, la décennie révolutionaire (17^9-1799) (Soissons, 1992), 102, ill.

RELATE D WORK S

Nineteenth- and twentieth-century bronzes

Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris (inv. CAM 259); H. with base: 80 cm,

W. 48 cm, D. 30 cm; engraved in bronze on left edge of back: "fondu Ciselé

par thomire"; inscribed on the base: RENDUE A LA LIBERTE ET A

L'EGALITE PAR LA CONVENTION NATIONALE LE 16 PLUVIOSE, DEUXIEME DE LA REPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE UNE ET INDIVISIBLE"; castby

Rubéron, rue Matignan for André Camoin; purchased from Camoin, 20 July

1932, by Nissim de Camondo for 675,000 francs (muséum archives). See

Vitry 1931^307-311.

Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris (inv. D 37621); H. 20.5 cm; reduced

cast, possibly by Barbedienne, 1880/1884; given to the museum by Carle

Dreyfus in 1952. See Paris 1989, 3:674-675, no. 888, ill.

Boilly paintings

The Bust of a Negress appears in both of Boilly's paintings of Houdon's

studio (see cat. 66) on the left side of the upper back shelf.

1. Salon cat. 1781, no. 264.

2. Furcy-Raynaud 1905, 238, letter of 10 Jan. 1779;

and Réau 1964,1:47.

3. Furcy-Raynaud 1905, 241, letter of 18 Jan. 1779;

and Réau 1964,1:47.

4. For a discussion of the layout of the garden and

its plantings and decorations see Jardins en France,

1760-1820. Pays d'illusion, terre d'expériences [exh. cat.,

Caisse nationale des monuments historiques et des

sites, Hôtel de Sully] (Paris, 1977), 84-88; and De

Bagatelle à Monceau, 1778-1978. Les Folies du XVIIle

siècle à Paris [exh. cat., Délégation de l'action artistique

de la ville de Paris, Château de Bagatelle and Musée

Carnavalet] (Paris, 1978-1979), 25-35.

5. Album of engravings drawn by Carmontelle,

engraved by Michault, Jardin de Monceau, près de Paris,

appartenant à son altesse sérénissime monseigneur le duc

de Chartres (Paris, 1779), pi. LX. This engraving does

not illustrate the fountain. For the acquisition and

development of the property at Monceau by the due

de Chartres, see Michel Fleury, éd., "Lecture d'une

note de Mlle Marie-Laure Deschamps relative aux

aménagements du parc Monceau (8e), à la fin du i8e

siècle et au début du 196," Ville de Paris. Commission

municipale du vieux Paris, Procès-verbaux année 1979

(Paris, 1997), 21-35.

6. Salon cat. 1783, 52, no number: "Une fontaine

composée de deux figures de grandeur naturelle, l'une

en marbre blanc, £ l'autre imitant une Négresse, exécutées £ placées dans le Jardin de Monseigneur le Duc

de Chartres, à Mouceaux [sic], près de Paris." A plaster

model of the group appeared in a sale of 30 July 1786,

château de Plessis-Piquet: "A vendre au château du

Plessis- Piquet près Sceaux, le modèle en plâtre, fait et

réparé par M. Houdon, du groupe qui est aux jardins

de Monceaux, représentant une Négresse et sa maîtresse,

les figures plus grandes que nature, sur un socle de

pierre et sous une tente octogone, faite en tôle de

Suède."

7. Thiéry 1787,1:69.

8. Réau 1964,1:99.

9. "Registre des réceptions des objets d'art et antiquités

trouvés chez les émigrés et condamnés..." (AN,

Fi7*-23), 22 Vendémiaire an IV [14 Oct. 1795], 223,

no. 5: "Une nymphe au bain. Une figure de négresse

en plomb versant de l'eau sans tête."

10. See Pierre Francastel, Girardon (Paris, 1928),

69-70, no. 19, figs. 13-16.

11. For a discussion of the portrayal of blacks in

Western art see Bugner ed. 1976 —, esp. vol. 4, pt. i.

12. "Given liberty and equality by the National

Convention 4 Feb. 1794, second [year] of the French

Republic, one and indivisible." See Vitry 1897,

351-354; and Vitry 19313, 8.

13. Louis Réau, "La Statue de la 'Philosophie'

de Houdon," AAF, n.s. i (1907), 210-216.

245

43

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Dated 1779

White marble

H. 41.9 cm (with base: 53.3 cm), W. 34.3 cm, D. 25.4 cm

Inscribed along center back truncation: P.P. HOUDON EN 1779.

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased with a generous grant from The Barra Foundation, Inc.,

matched by contributions from the Henry P. Mcllhenny Fund in memory of Frances P. Mcllhenny,

the Walter E. Stait Fund, the Fiske Kimball Fund, and with funds contributed by Mr. and Mrs. Jack M. Friedland,

Hannah L. and J. Welles Henderson, Mr. and Mrs. E. Newbold Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Mark E. Rubenstein,

Mr. and Mrs. John J. F. Sherrerd, the Women's Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Marguerite

and Gerry Lenfest, Leslie A. Miller and Richard B. Worley, Mr. and Mrs. John A. Nyheim, Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. Fox,

Stephanie S. Eglin, Maude de Schauensee, Mr. and Mrs. William T. Vogt, and with funds contributed by individual

donors to the Fund for Franklin (inv. 1996-162-1)

Benjamin Franklin served as minister of the emergent United

States of America to France from 1776 to 1785. Already famous

as philosopher, scientist, and statesman, he was a celebrity

immediately upon his arrival in Paris. A number of French

artists portrayed him, including Jean-Jacques Caffieri, JeanBaptiste Greuze, Joseph Siffred Duplessis, and Jean-Honoré

Fragonard. A participant in Parisian intellectual life, Franklin

frequented the salon of Mme Helvétius and joined the Académie

royale des sciences and the Loge des Neuf Soeurs. He returned

to Philadelphia on the same ship that brought Houdon to

America to make a life mask of George Washington.

The marble bust at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is the

most fully realized version of Houdon's earliest portrait of

Franklin. The subject is posed frontally with his head inclined

slightly forward. His hair falls onto his shoulders, his eyes look

to his right, and his lips are parted as if speaking. He is shown

wearing a plain neckcloth and simple suit, often described

as Quaker dress. Franklin was not a member of the Society

of Friends, but he normally wore austere clothing in France,

avoiding the formal attire customary for ambassadors. He also

habitually wore glasses.

This bust differs from the earlier marble at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fig. i) in being more consistently detailed and

carved with greater care. The central features of the two busts

are similar, although the mouth of the Philadelphia bust is slightly

more open, and the passages around the eyes, cheeks, and neck

are more complex. Likewise, the hair receives more attention,

and the stitching around the buttonholes is minutely rendered.

In its expressiveness and exquisite finish the Philadelphia

marble resembles Houdon's busts of Antoine-Louis-François

Le Fèvre de Caumartin (Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris) and

Aymard Jean de Nicolay (see cat. 30, fig. i), both also dated 1779.

247
i. Hondón, Benjamin Franklin, 1778, marble,

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

2. Houdon, Benjamin Franklin, 1778, terracotta,

Musée du Louvre, Paris (detail).

j.Jean-Jacques Caffieri, Benjamin Franklin,

2

 777' terracotta, Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris.

By 14 November 1778 busts of Franklin and Jean-Jacques

Rousseau were attracting visitors to Houdon's studio. A bust

of Franklin was shown at the Salon of 1779, along with portraits

of Molière, Voltaire, and Rousseau (see cats, n, 23, 26). Bachaumont praised the busts for their vivid and convincing characterizations. Frédéric-Melchior Grimm was struck by the

elevation of thought seen in the Franklin. Du Pont de Nemours

preferred Houdon's bust to Cafheri's, but he was enthusiastic

about the painted portrait by Duplessis.

The terracotta at the Louvre (fig. 2), dated 1778, has often

been proposed as the version shown at the Salon in 1779. Given

that the Metropolitan's bust is also dated 1778, however, it is

odd that Houdon would send a terracotta for public exhibition,

if he had already finished a marble. Moreover, Houdon's

manner of rendering the eyes was praised in 1778 as "beyond

painting," but the irises in the Louvre bust are simpler than

the more evolved form seen in the two marble busts. A bust of

Franklin was also shown at the Loge des Neuf Soeurs in August

1779. The client who presumably commissioned the Philadelphia bust could have been inspired by a visit to Houdon's studio

in late 1778 or by seeing either exhibition the following year.

The superior execution of the Philadelphia bust points to an

important patron, but there is currently no evidence for the

, • i • 6

person s identity.

Correspondence between Caffieri and William Temple

Franklin (Franklin's grandson and his assistant in Paris) records

7

that Houdon created the bust gratuitously. No documents,

however, indicate that Franklin posed for Houdon. Indeed a

letter from Houdon on 8 November 1783 thanking an unnamed

host for presenting him to Franklin suggests that the two had

not met previously. Many writers have noted that the painting

by Duplessis (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and

the bust by Caffieri (fig. 3) are more accurate renderings (they

were the images Franklin preferred), and both artists are known

9

to have had sittings with Franklin. But Houdon must have

known Caffieri's bust from the Salon of 1777, and his selection

of Franklin as a subject —the first time he depicted a person

treated recently by Caffieri — probably contained an element of

challenge to his older, increasingly bitter rival.

Houdon's characterization of Franklin was ambitious and

original. It was unusual for him to combine contemporary dress

and frontal pose with an abbreviated bust format that enhances

the intensity of the portrait. The speaking likeness, at which

Houdon excelled, was also a daring form to choose for Franklin, who generally remained silent in public. Nevertheless, the

animated facial expression supports the idea that Houdon had

seen Franklin in public, perhaps at the Loge des Neuf Soeurs

ceremony involving Voltaire on 9 April 1778 or at the Académie

royale des sciences on 29 April 1778 when Franklin and

Voltaire embraced.

Depending on the version of the bust, the lighting, and the

angle of view, Franklin's expression can be perceived as restless, apprehensive, good humored, or slightly smiling. The

bust is all the more intriguing for being subtle and perhaps

248
AMERICA N PATRIOT S

ambiguous. No matter how one interprets Houdon's Franklin,

it possesses a striking immediacy, beside which Caffieri's more

accurate bust appears inert. Houdon's concentrated description

of Franklin recalls the Enlightenment tendency to scrutinize

the faces of great men as the outward manifestation of their

character. For this writer, the steady eyes and splendidly rendered mouth combine to form an image of deliberation, as if

Franklin were speaking with care and observing the effect of

his words.

DEAN WALKE R

Back view of cat. 43

PROVENANC E

A noble family, château du Mont-Jarry, Avranches (Manche), France, by 1828

(according to the marquise Franco d'Almodovar [née Marcelle de Loterie

de Presle], in Sotheby's sale cat., 1996, which reproduces a handwritten

certificate from the marquise) [unconfirmed]; by descent to the marquise

d'Almodovar, until Dec. 1931; art market, Paris; Clapp and Graham, New

York, by 1939; purchased by Géraldine Rockefeller Dodge, New York; sold

as "property from the collection of the late Géraldine Rockefeller Dodge,"

Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 29 Nov. 1975, no. 124; purchased by the

British Rail Pension Fund, U.K.; Sotheby's, New York, 5 Dec. 1996, no. 78.

EXHIBITION S

Tom Armstrong, 200 Years of American Sculpture [exh. cat., Whitney Museum

of American Art] (New York, 1976), 33,341, no. 102; Dean Walker, Portraits of

Franklin [exh., Philadelphia Museum of Art] (Philadelphia, 1997); Alice

Beamesderfer, Gifts in Honor of the i2<jth Anniversary of the Philadelphia Museum

of Art [exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art] (Philadelphia, 2002), 33.

REFERENCE S

Sotheby Parke Bernet, European Works of Art (New York, 1975), 26-27, lot

124 (incorrect provenance); [Margaret Schwartz and Wendell Garrett], "JeanAntoine Houdon: A Marble Bust of Benjamin Franklin," in Sotheby's,

American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture 3 (New York, 1996), no. 78 (with

French provenance); Dean Walker, "Acquisition of the Year, Benjamin

Franklin by Houdon for the Philadelphia Museum of Art," Apollo 146 (Dec.

1997), 4-5; Claude-Anne Lopez, My Life with Benjamin Franklin (New Haven

and London, 2000), 156; Dean Walker in Philadelphia 2002, 33.

RELATE D WORK S

Terracottas

Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. RF 349); H. 40.5 cm (with base: 52.2 cm), W.

34.2 cm, D. 27.4 cm; inscribed on proper right shoulder: "Houdon f. 1778";

on back: "franKlin" and fragments of cachet de l'atelier, possibly the bust in

the Salon of 1779, no. 221; posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio,

Paris, 15-17 Dec. 1828, no. 27; purchased by François-Hippolyte Walferdin

(1795-1880); given by his heirs to the Louvre in 1880 (Louvre cat. 1998,

2:423). According to Giacometti 1918-1919, 2:172, Gustave Deloye made a

mold from this terracotta when it belonged to Walferdin and produced

casts —of unspecified material—which even forty years later could be

easily confused for old versions, except that Deloye's casts were slightly

smaller than the terracotta original.

Another terracotta in Houdon's studio sale, Paris, 8 Oct. 1795, no. 98,

is untraced.

Marble

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 72.6), H. 44.5 cm (with

base: 57.2 cm); inscribed on back: "houdon f. / 1778." See Charles Coleman

Sellers, Benjamin Franklin in Portraiture (New Haven and London, 1962),

309-310; and H. Harvard Amason in Washington 1976,109. This bust was

sent by Houdon to the U.S. in 1785 and given to the Metropolitan by John

Bard in 1872.

Plasters

Plasters presented by Houdon to Franklin, of which at least one had been

given by 1783. Four plaster busts by Houdon mentioned by William Temple

Franklin in a letter of 3 Apr. 1785 are untraced (Sellers 1962, 306).

Musée Fabre, Montpellier (inv. 045.2.1); H. 44 cm (with base: 57.5 cm),

W. 25 cm, D. 25 cm; inscribed on proper right side: "houdon f. 1778";

section in back of shoulders broken off. Earliest version with precise documentation: exhibited at the Société des beaux-arts, Montpellier, 28 Dec. 1779,

as no. 183 (Bajou 1989,25-26; written communication from Michel Hilaire,

14 May 1998); at the Musée Fabre since 1945.

Schlossmuseum Gotha (inv. P 51); H. (with base) 61.3 cm, W. 36.4 cm,

D. 28.3 cm; inscribed on proper right side: "houdon f. 1778." Duke Ernst II

of Saxe-Gotha, an important early patron of Houdon, favored the cause of

American independence and was interested in the science of electricity and

the lightning rod, factors that point to a likely early acquisition date for this

bust during Franklin's years in Paris. Schuttwolf 1995,153, no. 61, describes

the plaster as colored to resemble bronze.

American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston, on loan to the Boston

Athenaeum; H. 44 cm (with base: 59.5 cm), W. 33.8 cm, D. ca. 30.3 cm;

249

12
inscribed on proper right side: "houdon f. 177(8?]"; damaged and repaired,

with remounting on the socle that apparently increased the forward tilt

of the head; surface painted white twice. See Sellers 1962, 307-308, and

Arnason in Washington 1976,109. Some scholars, including this author,

think this bust was kept at Monticello by Thomas Jefferson, who acquired

busts by Houdon in France; record exists of his payment of 1,000 francs to

Houdon 3 July 1789 (Sellers, 1962,313 n. 7). In June 2002 Tony Sigel, at the

Straus Center for Conservation, Harvard University Art Museums, shared

results of his examination, which revealed traces of the original terracottacolored coating.

Boilly paintings

Another bust of Franklin, untraced, appears in Boilly's paintings of Houdon's

studio (cat. 66). This portrait is possibly recorded in the engraving by PierreMichel Alix after a drawing by Jean-Jacques-François Berbier l'aine (Sellers

1962, pi. 19).

Expanded format

Houdon did a later, almost half-length sculpted portrait of Franklin dressed

in a voluminous robe, which exists at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Angers,

and the Boston Athenaeum (inv. UH 151 [1908]). See Sellers 1962,312-313.

Early exhibitions

Studio of the artist, Paris, Nov. 1778; Loge des Neuf Soeurs, Paris, 18 Aug.

1779; Paris, Salon cat. 1779, no. 221, under the heading: "buste en terre

cuite"; Société des beaux-arts, Montpellier, 28 Dec. 1779, no. 183; Salon de

la correspondance, Paris, Feb. 1783, lent by William Temple Franklin, along

with a plaster of Caffieri's bust of Houdon; Musée de Paris, Paris, 6 Mar.

1783, unspecified form and material; Salon of 1791, Paris, no. 484 (including eleven sculptures by Houdon), unspecified form and material.

Drawing

A drawing, closely related to Houdon's 1778 model of Franklin, has been

attributed to the sculptor (Sotheby's, London, 23 Mar. 1978, no. 179, and

reproduced in Sotheby's New York sale cat. of 1996), but this attribution

must be considered speculative.

Signature on cat. 43

1. Métra 1787-1790, 8:117.

2. Bachaumont 1780-1789,13:229-230, letter 3, 22

Sept. 1779.

3. Hart and Biddle 1911,101.

4. Sellers 1962,126-127.

5. Métra 1787-1790, 8:117: "never has anyone pushed

sculpture farther along in this way."

6. Lopez 2000,156. Lopez comments in passing that

Philadelphia's bust may have been the one shown at

the Musée de Paris in 1783. This would not explain

why the bust was carved in 1779 when Houdon

had already executed one marble that remained

in his possession.

7. Hart and Biddle 1911, 88-89.

8. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia,

Franklin Papers 30, no. 77. Hart and Biddle 1911,103,

translates the complete letter.

9. Arnason proposed that it would have been easy

for Houdon to arrange for a sitting or two; see H.

Harvard Arnason and Arthur Beale, in Metamorphoses

in Nineteenth-Century Sculpture, ed. Jeanne L Wasserman [exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University]

(Cambridge, MA, 1975), 70 n. 2.

10. These characteristics are to be found, however, in

Houdon's bust of Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, dated 1778

(see cat. 27, fig. i).

11. Two images of Franklin are discussed in Jean

Gaspard Lavater, Essai sur la Physiognomic, vol. 2

(Zurich, 1783).

12. Auguste Rodin saw Franklin's expression in similar

terms; quoted in Réau 1964,402.

250
John Paul Jones (1747-1792)

Dated 1781

White marble with gray veining on a separate, round, white marble base

H. 57 cm (with base: 70 cm), W. 53 cm, D. 30.5 cm.

Inscribed on back edge of truncation: J. A. H. 1781

United States Naval Academy Museum, Annapolis

44

John Paul Jones, the most celebrated naval hero of the American Revolution, was born "John Paul" in Arbigland, Scotland.1

At thirteen he joined the merchant marine as an apprentice seaman, traveling between the British Isles and America and the

West Indies. Rising to the rank of captain by age twenty-one,

he earned a reputation as a man of great competence and

integrity, but also of fiery temperament. Self-educated and ambitious, he gained social status by polishing his manners and

becoming a freemason, joining the Saint Bernard Lodge of

Kirkcudbright in November 1770. After the killing of an insubordinate sailor in Tobago in 1773, he took refuge in America

and assumed the name John Paul Jones.

Through freemasons in Virginia and Pennsylvania, Jones

met members of the Continental Congress, and when the

Continental navy was formed in 1775, he was given the commission of lieutenant. Following several successful encounters

at sea, he was promoted to captain and sent to France in command of the Ranger, which he sailed into enemy waters, making two daring landings in Britain and defeating HMS Drake.

In September 1779 he made a second foray into British waters

during which his flagship, the Bonhomme Richard, prevailed

over HMS Serapis in a furious battle.

These exploits made him famous throughout Europe. In

Paris in 1789 it was said: "One is waiting for the famous Paul

Jones with great impatience. The Queen said in the last few

days that she wanted to attach a feather to his hat herself. This

idea was found to be charming, £ suddenly hats à la Paul Jones

were being ordered from... the court's purveyor of fashion."

Jones made a triumphal entrance into Paris the following spring

and was received warmly at court and among Enlightenment

intellectuals and aristocrats, enjoying great success with the

ladies. Louis XVI awarded him a special sword and the cross of

Military Merit (making him the first American to be decorated

by a foreign government). According to Elisabeth VigéeLebrun,"His reputation had preceded him... one knew in how

many battles he and his small squadron had triumphed over

English forces that were ten times as strong. Nevertheless, I

have never met such a modest man; it was impossible ever to

make him speak of his achievements; but on all other subjects

4

he spoke willingly with infinite wit and naturalness."

Jones was a friend of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas

Jefferson. Franklin, who had been minister to France for the

new American republic since 1776, had joined the Loge des

Neuf Soeurs in 1778 and was appointed its venerable, or leader,

251

AMERICA N PAI R IOT S

Back view of cat. 44

in May 1779. A year later Jones was invited to join this prestigious masonic lodge, and a celebration was held in his honor

on i May 1780. Houdon, also a member, had already executed

busts of members Voltaire and Franklin (cats. 23-25 and 43),

and he was, in this instance, commissioned by the lodge itself

to do a portrait of Jones. According to Frédéric-Melchior Grimm:

"The intrepid Paul Jones has been here several weeks. The Loge

des Neuf Soeurs, of which he is a member, engaged M. Houdon

to make his bust. This portrait is another masterpiece worthy of

the chisel, which seems destined to consecrate to immortality

illustrious men in every walk of life."

Houdon portrayed Jones, who was thirty-two, in his American captain's uniform, with braided epaulettes and a jacket with

buttons that are decorated with anchors in relief. Prominently

hanging from a ribbon on his chest is the cross of Military

Merit. Jones looks out and slightly to his left with an expression

of determination and authority, but also of sensitivity and

refinement. This conforms to the description of him given by

Abigail Adams: "He is small of stature, well proportioned, soft

in his speech, easy in his address, polite in his manners, vastly

civil, understands all the etiquette of a lady's toilette as perfectly as he does the masts, sails, and rigging of his ship. Under

all this appearance of softness he is bold, enterprising, ambitious,

and active." The bone structure of his face and his expressive

eyes are set offby his natural hair, pulled back and tied at the nape

of his neck. The bust was admired immediately for the accuracy

of the likeness and for its expression of the sitter's character.

Contemporary documents do not indicate the material

of the bust commissioned by the Loge des Neuf Soeurs. The

present marble portrait bears the date 1781, whereas the known

plaster busts (see Related Works) all bear the date 1780, the year

of the commission. The provenance of the Annapolis bust,

which is the only known version in marble, has strong masonic

associations. Said to come from the collection of Philippe, due

d'Orléans, who served as Grand Maître of the Grand Orient de

France from 1773 until 1793, it may have been acquired shortly

after the original commission.

Jones was enormously pleased with Houdon's portrait and

ordered at least sixteen plaster casts to offer to friends and

associates, including Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson (see

Related Works). On 2 July 1825 Jefferson wrote to John H.

Sherburne, a friend who had sent him a commemorative portrait

of Jones: "Houdon's bust of him is an excellent likeness.... Such

a one would be perfect, and there must be several of those

busts in the hands of his friends and others. If there be none

. ,9

nearer, I have one.

After peace was reached with England in 1783, Jones saw

his fortunes turn. With Grimm's intervention, he entered the

Russian navy as a rear admiral and served for a year in a campaign against the Ottoman Turks on the Black Sea, but court

intrigues caused it to end badly for him. In 1790 he returned to

Paris where he died, largely forgotten, two years later. Today,

celebrated as the leader who gave the American navy its earliest

traditions of heroism and victory, he lies buried in the crypt of the

United States Naval Academy Chapel with Houdon's magnificent

marble bust beside his tomb.

ANN E L. POULET

Signature on cat. 44

253
PROVENANC E

Collection of the duc d'Orléans, Philippe Egalité (1747-1793); by inheritance to his son Louis-Philippe (1773-1850), king of France; by inheritance

to his second son, Louis-Charles-Philippe-Raphael d'Orléans (1814-1896);

by inheritance to the duc de Nemours, Paris, until 1939 (information

provided by James W. Cheevers, associate director and senior curator,

United States Naval Academy Museum); "Le marbre qui appartenait

à l'ébeniste-antiquaire parisien Jean Schmidt, a émigré en 1939 en

Amérique" (Réau 1964, 2:34); acquired by Marie Sterner, for her New

York gallery, summer 1939 (Watson 1940, 183); purchased by Marshall

Field, Chicago, 1940; given to the naval academy by his widow, Ruth

Pruyn Field, 17 Dec. 1959.

EXHIBITION S

Worcester 1964, 70-73, ill.; Washington 1976, in, 366, no. 175, ill.

REFERENCE S

Corr. littéraire, 12:394; Hart and Biddle 1911, 125-137; Mrs. Reginald de

Koven, The Life and Letters of John Paul Jones (New York, 1913), 1:70; 2:73-75,

481; Giacometti 1918-1919,2:240-249; Giacometti 1929,2:98-102; Georg

Pudelko, "A Marble Bust of John Paul Jones by Jean Antoine Houdon," Art

in America 27, no. 4 (Oct. 1939), 151-155, ill.; Jane Watson, "News and Comment," Magazine of Art 33, no. 3 (Mar. 1940), 183, ill. p. 182; anonymous,

Parnassus 12, no. 3 (Mar. 1940), 21, ill; Réau 1964,1:84-85, 97,150-151,

159-160,178, 282, 403-405; 2:34, no. 140; Arnason 1975, 57-58,113 nn.

147-149, fig. 126; Louis Amiable, Une Loge Maçonnique d'avant 3789. La

Loge des Neuf Soeurs, éd. Charles Porset (Paris, 1989), 150-151, 333.

i. Houdon, John Paul Jones, 1780, white plaster with traces of terracottacolored paint, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

RELATE D WORK S

Among the most frequently reproduced of Houdon's works during and

after his lifetime. An excellent unpublished compilation of known versions,

their locations, and histories is "The Bust of John Paul Jones" by James W.

Cheevers, 1975, updated in 1984 and 1988.

Plaster casts as gifts from the sitter

In 1786 a bust given to Thomas Jefferson (letter from Jones to Jefferson,

28 Feb. 1786); see John Henry Sherburne, The Life and Character of John

Paul Jones, a Captain in the United States Navy during the Revolutionary War

(New York, 1851), 257-258. This is probably the bust now in the Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston (see below).

In 1787 busts given to Robert Morris, who sold it at auction in Philadelphia, 18 May 1797, no. 115 (see Hart and Biddle 1911,130); and to George

Washington (letters from Jones to Washington, 25 July 1787; from Washington to Jones, 2 Sept.; and from Jones to Washington, 9 Sept.; George

Washington Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, 1741-1799,

ser. 4; and ser. 2 letterbooks; and Hart and Biddle 1911,129-130).

In 1788 busts sent to "General St. Clair and Mr. Ross of Philadelphia;

Mr. John Jay, General Irvine, Mr. Secretary Thomson and Colonel Wadsworth

of New York; Mr. Maddison and Colonel Carryton of Virginia" (letter from

Jones to Jefferson, Sept. 1788, asking that Jefferson's secretary, William Short,

arrange for the shipment); see Sherburne 1851, 290-292. Of these eight

busts, only the gift to General Irvine has been identified; it is now at the

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (see below).

In 1789 busts given to Benjamin Franklin, the comte d'Estaing, and

Lafayette (journal entry, 29 July 1789, St. Petersburg), as well as to Grimm

(Hart and Biddle 1911,134).

On 29 Mar. 1791 Jones wrote to Jefferson from Paris that Mr. Burton of

the U.S. Congress had requested a bust for the state of North Carolina and

that Jones was having Houdon ship one; see Sherburne 1851, 318. There is

no record, however, of this bust ever having been delivered.

Sales and exhibition catalogues during Houdon's lifetime

Paris, Salon cat. 1781, 46, under "Bustes en plâtre, couleur de terre cuite,"

no. 261: "Paul Jones."

Houdon's studio sale, Paris, 8 Oct. 1795,17, under "Terre cuite," no. 97:

"Le Buste de Paul-Jones, il est vêtu en uniforme, & posé sur piédouche en

marbre bleu-turquin; hauteur totale 24 pouces [60.96 cm]" (306 livres).

Posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio, Paris, 15 -17 Dec.

1828,16, no. 20: "Plâtre. Buste de Paul John [sic], général américain."

Extant plasters

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. 31.874) (fig. i); white with traces of terracotta-colored paint; inscribed on truncation of proper right arm: "houdon

f. 1780"; H. 69.85 cm, W. 48.26 cm; probably the bust given by Jones to

Thomas Jefferson in 1786. Deposited at the Boston Athenaeum on 17 Jan.

1828 by Joseph Coolidge Jr. (who had married Jefferson's granddaughter

Ellen Randolph); disappeared from Athenaeum records after 1867; sold

at auction in May 1903 by Joseph Kimball, proprietor of the Boston Museum

theater; purchased by Charles H. Taylor, who gave it to the Museum of Fine

Arts in 1931. See Swan 1940, 165-167; Harding 1984, 83; and Arnason

1975, 58.

National Academy of Design, New York (inv. 53 -S); originally painted

terracotta color, now overpainted white; H. 57.6 cm (with base: 70.5 cm), W.

254
AMERICA N PATRIOT S

50.1 cm, D. 29.21 cm; open at back; inscribed on truncation of proper right

shoulder: "houdon f. 1780"; thought to have belonged to Robert R. Livingston

(1746-1843), who acquired it while serving as American ambassador to

France; purchased from the American Academy of Fine Arts in 1842. The

author wishes to thank David B. Darringer, curator of sculpture and paintings at the National Academy of Design, for this information.

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia (inv. 1864.3); painted

terracotta color during restoration in 1989; H. 70.5 cm, W. 48.6 cm, D. 30.5

cm; inscribed on truncation of proper right shoulder: "houdon f. 1780";

fragments of cachet de l'atelier at center back; once inscribed in gold paint

across front edge of truncation: "Presented by PAUL JONES to Maj: GenL

WM IRVINE" [now effaced]. Gift from Jones ca. 1789; given by Irvine to the

museum ca. 1832, as a bust of Paul Jones by an unknown artist. See Susan

James-Gadzinski and Mary Mullen Cunningham, American Sculpture in

the Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

(London, 1997), 4-5, ill.

Later copies and casts

In 1905 Jones' body was exhumed from his grave in Paris and identified

by comparing the skull with measurements from Houdon's portrait bust

before it was shipped to the U.S. At this time many reproductions of the

bust were made.

Plaster casts were made by the National Academy of Design in 1904;

Florentine Art Plaster Co., Philadelphia, ca. 1910-1914; and Caproni Brothers, Boston (listed as no. 5497 in catalogues for 1922 and 1928). They are

currently reproduced and sold by the Naval Academy Museum.

Bronze casts were made in the 19205 and 19305 by the Gorham Co.,

New York, and Roman Bronze Works, New York, after the plaster at the

National Academy of Design; Kennedy Galleries, New York, had bronze casts

made in 1970 after the plaster at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

The author would like to thank James W. Cheevers for this information.

20 -b. Augustin Dupré, Medal of John Paul Jones, 17^9, silver, Massachusetts

Historical Society, Boston.

Medal

The U.S. Congress voted in 1787 to have a medal struck in honor of Jones,

and in Jan. 1789 Thomas Jefferson commissioned one on behalf of the

Congress, to be done by Augustin Dupré (1730-1819) after Houdon's bust

(fig. 2a-b). See William S. Appleton, Augustin Dupré, and His Work for

America (Cambridge, 1890), 4; and Charles Saunier, Augustin Dupré, orfèvre,

médailleur et graveur général des monnaies (Paris, 1894), 24-28, pi. IV.

Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston; silver; diam. 4.5 cm. Obverse

has profile portrait of Jones, signed on truncation of shoulder: DUPRÉ F.;

inscribed: JOANNI PAULO JONES CLASSIS PRAEFECTO; on exergue:

CO M m A AMERICANA. Reverse depicts battle of Bonhomme Richard and

HMS Serapis-, exergue signed: DUPRÉ F.; inscribed: HOSTIUM NAVIBUS

CAPTISUAT FUGATIS; exergue: AD QRAM SCOTIAE XXIII. SEPT.

M.DCCLXXVIII.

1. For the biography of Jones see Sherburne 1851; and

Samuel Eliot Monson,John Paul Jones, a Sailor's

Biography (New York, 1959), and references therein.

2. Morison 1959,18.

3. Métra 1787-1790, 8:288, 5 Sept. 1789.

4. Vigée-Lebrun 1984, 2:268.

5. Amiable 1989,136.

6. Bachaumont 1780-1789,15:250-251, letter of

18 July 1780.

7. Con. littéraire, 12:394.

8. See Kimball 1950, 262,339 n. 57.

9. See Chinard 1930, 51.

2

55

45-46

Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roche-Gilbert

du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834)

Before 1789

White plaster, painted white, on separate white plaster base

H. 62.5 cm (with base: 76.1 cm), W. 53.2 cm

The Boston Athenaeum, Boston, Athenaeum Purchase, 1828 (inv. UH 149.1828)

Life Mask of the Marquis de Lafayette

Before July 1785

White plaster

H. 34.3 cm, max. W. 18 cm

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, Gift of Arthur

H. and Mary Marden Dean, Class of 1963 (inv. 74.010.001)

Lafayette was a hero of both the American and the French Revolutions and a champion of freedom, equality, and the rights

of man throughout his long life. Born into an ancient noble

French family from the Auvergne region of central France,

Lafayette lost his father when he was two, inheriting the title of

marquis and a tradition of military bravery. In 1768 he was

enrolled at the Collège du Plessis in Paris, studying a classical

curriculum. At age thirteen he was orphaned and inherited a

large fortune. Three years later he married Adrienne de Noailles,

whose powerful family assured him a prominent place at Versailles as courtier to the king. In his words, "when my wife's

family obtained a place for me at court, I did not hesitate to

be disagreeable to preserve my independence. It was while I

was in that frame of mind that I first heard of the troubles in

America.... When I first learned of that quarrel, my heart was

enlisted, and I thought only of joining the colors."

Like a number of French aristocrats, Lafayette tried to join

the American insurgents in December 1776. He was refused

permission to do so, however, because he was underage (nineteen) and because Louis XVI did not want to support such an

overtly hostile act against the English. Taking matters into his

own hands, Lafayette signed up directly with the American

representative in Paris, Silas Deane, who gave him the rank of

major general in the American army. Because of a shortage of

official funds, Lafayette paid for a ship to transport himself and

other officers, leaving for America from Spain in April 1777.

He wrote to his wife from the ship, "The welfare of America is

intimately connected with the happiness of all mankind; she

will become the respectable and safe asylum of virtue, integrity,

tolerance, equality, and a peaceful liberty." He never wavered

from this conviction.

Lafayette, who volunteered to serve without pay, was

appointed to George Washington's staff and found in the general a mentor and lifelong friend. Washington trusted him with

a series of commands in which he fought well. Returning to

France after an alliance was formed in 1778, he helped persuade

the king to send reinforcements to America under Rochambeau in 1780. Accompanying them to America, Lafayette led a

number of successful battles, culminating in the defeat of

Cornwallis at Yorktown in October 1781. When he went home

to Paris, he was hailed as the hero of two worlds, and great

things were expected of him.

On 17 December 1781, in gratitude for Lafayette's victory

over Cornwallis, the Virginia legislature "resolved unanimously

257

4-

I-

AMERICA N PAIR IOTS

that a bust of the Marquis de Lafayette be... made, in Paris, of

the best marble employed for such purpose, and presented to

the Marquis" and that an agent "employ a proper person in Paris

to make the above bust." The project was forgotten until

Lafayette mentioned it to Washington in a letter of September

1783. Governor Harrison of Virginia then acted immediately,

and in April 1784 the Virginia Assembly made a new resolution for the prompt execution of the bust. In December 1784,

for unknown reasons, the Virginia delegates voted to present

the bust to the city of Paris instead of to Lafayette himself, "with

a request that the same may be accepted and preserved in some

public place of the said city"; and "to cause another bust of

him... to be procured... and... be fixed in such public place, at

the seat of government [in America], as may hereafter be

appointed for the erection of the statue voted by the General

o

Assembly to General Washington."

Thomas Jefferson, with Thomas Barclay, the American

consul at Nantes, strongly influenced the selection of Houdon

for this prestigious commission. Jefferson reported that the life

mask of Lafayette was taken by Houdon in July 1785, before the

9

marquis left on a trip to Germany. On 25 August 1785, after

the sculptor had departed for America, Barclay wrote: "it will

be better that the same person compleat both the Busts; the

more so as he is at the top of his profession. The cost of each

will be 3000 Livres, and I have paid 50 Louis d'ors for the purchase of the marble for the first."10

Lafayette was twenty-eight when the life mask was made.

The sculptor carefully recorded the bone structure of the face

with the high sloping forehead, arched eyebrows, prominent

cheekbones, and straight, fine nose. The skin is smooth and

unlined, the lips softly modeled. The seams of the mold are

clearly visible on the mask, while the artist added plaster to fill

in the bald form at the back of the head and to indicate the pleats

of a cravat at the neck. The eyes were modeled with the lids

partly closed, the sitter looking down and slightly to his right.

This mask captures the dreamy, idealistic character of Lafayette

as well as his aristocratic refinement.

Using the mask as a model, Houdon had begun work on

the large marble bust before leaving for America in July 1785 and

completed it soon after his return. On 24 January 1786 Jefferson

wrote to the governor of Virginia: "The first of the Marquis's

busts will be finished next month. I shall present that one to

the city of Paris, because the delay has been noticed by some. I

hope to be able to send another to Virginia in the course of the

summer." With permission from Louis XVI, he arranged for

i. Houdon, Le Marquis de Lafayette, 1786, white marble, Library of Virginia,

Capitol Building, Richmond.

the marble to be presented to the city of Paris on behalf of

the Commonwealth of Virginia in an elaborate formal ceremony at the Hôtel de Ville on 28 September 1786. Although

reportedly destroyed under the Commune in August 1792, the

bust was salvaged and repaired by Houdon and appeared in his

posthumous sale.

The second marble bust (fig. i) destined for the capitol

building in Richmond, Virginia, is of the same format as the

first: Lafayette wears the uniform of a major general in the

American revolutionary army, with a drapery wrapped around

the truncation of his arms and encircling the marble base in a

style similar to that used for the portrait of Louis XVI (cat. 50),

both exhibited at the Salon of 1787. Although derived from

the life mask, Lafayette is here given a fuller, more mature face,

and the drapery lends the composition a baroque grandeur.

Hanging prominently from the lapel are the cross of the Order

259
2. Houdon, Le Marquis de Lafayette,

1790, white marble,

Musée de Versailles.

of Saint Louis, awarded by Louis XVI in 1783, and the badge of

the Society of the Cincinnati. The marquis, delighted to learn of

the commissions, wrote to Washington on 26 October 1786:

"The State of Virginia has just given me a new indication of their

kindness in placing my bust in the Hôtel de Ville in Paris. The

destination of the other bust is all the more agreeable to me in

that, placed in the capitol of the State, next to the statue of my

14

beloved general, I will render him eternal homage."

The Athenaeum bust resembles the two marbles but has

a shorter truncation and lacks the drapery. It was acquired by

Jefferson in Paris directly from Houdon, along with several

other busts, in November 1789. That that bust was plaster

painted a terracotta color is confirmed by a document that

accompanied the shipment, mentioning "One vial of paint

for the busts." Like Washington, Jefferson had formed a real

friendship with Lafayette and recognized his devotion to the

cause of liberty and his untiring efforts to promote support for

America in the French government: "When I was stationed

in his country... he made our cause his own... .In truth, I only

held the nail; he drove it." Jefferson included the bust of

Lafayette among the portraits of great men by Houdon that he

displayed on brackets in the Tea Room of his home, Monticello.

The other sitters were Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and

John Paul Jones.

In 1787 Lafayette was named to the Assembly of Notables

called by Louis XVI. Although loyal to the king, he endorsed

reforms that limited the powers of the monarch and guaranteed basic human rights. Elected to the Estates General in 1789,

he fell out of favor with the crown. Undeterred, he drafted a

Declaration of the Rights of Man and presented it to the National

Assembly. Inspired by the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution, copies of which he owned, he became

a primary architect of the French Revolution. Following the

storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, he was chosen by popular demand to form the National Guard, a citizens' militia, and

to be its commanding general.

On 14 July 1790 Lafayette organized an enormous Fête de

la Federation in the Champs-de-Mars. He was at the zenith of

his popularity and power. It was in this context that Houdon

was commissioned by the National Guard in Paris to execute

a marble portrait of Lafayette in his National Guard uniform

(fig. 2) (see Related Works). The fiery idealist of the earlier

portraits is here depicted as a middle-aged man, his features

somewhat thickened, and wearing a formal wig.

Lafayette's dreams of a constitutional monarchy in France

faded as more radical factions took over in Paris. He fled to

Amsterdam, was imprisoned by the Germans and declared an

émigré by the French, who confiscated all of his property and

sentenced him to death. Released from prison in Austria in

1797, he went to Denmark. Under Napoleon, Lafayette was able

to return to France in 1799, although he despised the emperor

and his despotic government. In 1824 he made a triumphant

extended return trip to the United States, seeing Jefferson for

a last time in December at Monticello, where his bust was on

display in the "gallery of worthies."

ANN E L. POULET

PROVENANC E

* Bust *

Acquired by Jefferson from Houdon 3 July 1789 and shipped to the U.S. on

his return from France that fall; installed in the Tea Room at Monticello

(Jefferson's "Catalogue of Paintings &c. at Monticello," ca. 1809-1817, in

Monticello 1993,436, app. II); probably included in posthumous auction of

his possessions, Jan. 1827; acquired, along with busts of Washington,

Franklin, and Jones, by Joseph Coolidge Jr., husband of Jefferson's granddaughter Ellen Randolph; deposited by him at Boston Athenaeum in 1828

(deposit of other three busts accepted, n Mar.); purchase by Athenaeum

approved 13 Oct. 1828 for $100 (title for other busts given to Athenaeum by

Coolidge's descendants in 1912, not realizing the Franklin bust had been

purchased in Sept. 1828 for $200; see documents in Athenaeum archives).

260
AMERICA N PATR I OT S

4- Life mask 4-

Taken by Houdon in July 1785; passed by inheritance through Lafayette's

descendants, château de Chavaniac (Auvergne); purchased, along with many

other objects and documents that had belonged to Lafayette, by Elie Fabius

(1864-1942), Paris, between 1912 and 1934; acquired from Fabius heirs in

Dec. 1962 by Arthur H. and Mary Marden Dean (Fabius family archives; the

author would like to thank M. François Fabius for this information); given

by the Deans to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell in 1964.

E XH IBITION S

4- Bust 4-

Worcester 1964,81-84, ill.; Agnes Mongan, et al., Harvard Honors Lafayette

[exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University] (Cambridge, 1975-1976),

66-68, no. 18, ill; Washington 1976, no, 366, no. 174, ill.; A Climate for Art

[exh. cat, Boston Athenaeum] (Boston, 1980), 37, no. 44; Monticello 1993,

33, 68-69, 88, 215, 219, no. 92, ill.

4- Life mask 4-

André Girodie, Exposition du centenaire de La Fayette 1757-1834 [exh. cat.,

Musée de l'Orangerie] (Paris, 1934), 8384, no. 118, pi. VII, lent by Pierre

Fabius; La Révolution française dans l'histoire, dans la littérature, dans l'art [exh.

cat., Musée Carnavalet] (Paris, 1939), 104, no. 733; La Fayette [exh. cat.,

Archives nationales, Hôtel de Rohan] (Paris, 1957), 92-93, no. 279, lent by

MM. Fabius; Lafayette, Hero of Two Worlds: The Art and Pageantry of His

Farewell Tour of America, 1824-1825 [exh. cat., The Queens Museum, Flushing, NY] (Hanover and London, 1989), 100-104, ^ P-IO1» fig- 9°-

REFERENCE S

4- Bust 4-

Chinard 1930, xvii-xxii; Swan 1940, 165-166; Kimball 1943, 165-167,

fig. 6; Walter Muir Whitehill, "Portrait Busts in the Library of the Boston

Athenaeum," Antiques 103 (June 1973), 1141, 1145, ill.; Arnason 1975, 54,

80-81,116 n.i98, fig. 161, pi. 104; Harding 1984, 83,123, fig. 22; Marc H.

Miller, "Lafayette's Farewell Tour and American Art," in Flushing 1989,104.

1793, une mutilation qui a été réparée," sold for 50 francs (Réau 1964,

1:119); anonymous sale, Paris, 21 Apr. 1834, no. 116, for 68.5 francs (Réau

1964,1:120).

Capitol, Richmond, Virginia (fig. i); 1785-1786; white marble; H. 88.9

cm, W. 63.5 cm, D. 43.2 cm; separate square marble base inscribed: "Buste

voté par l'Assemblée générale de l'Etat de Virginie le 17 décembre 1781 en

l'honneur du Marquis de La Fayette, major général au service des Etats-Unis

d'Amérique et ancien commandant en chef de l'armée des Etats-Unis

en Virginie, comme un monument durable de sa mémoire et de leur

gratitude"; Salon of 1787, 51, no. 256: "M. le Marquis de Lafayette, pour les

Etats de la Virginie" (see Chinard 1930, 21-22,30-31,32-34; Réau 1964,

1:85-86, 88; 2:34-35, no. 142).

Plasters with drapery

Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preufëischer Kulturbesitz (inv. Ki8); painted

brownish terracotta color; H. (with self-base) 93.5 cm, W. 70.3 cm; from

collection of Prince Henry of Prussia (Erich Biehahn, Kunstwerke derdeutschen

Staatsbibliothek [Berlin, 1961], 43, no. 170; Rheinsberg 2002,261-262, no.

VL45>iU.).

Location unknown. On 8 Sept. 1789 Houdon offered a version of his

bust of Lafayette (presumably in plaster) to the committee of the district

of Saint-Philippe du Roule, and on 23 Jan. 1790 the committee thanked him

for it (Lacroix 1894-1898,1:514).

Plaster without drapery

Girard College, Philadelphia (inv. G-P-44); restored after severe damage in

1991 and painted pale orange; H. 61.5 cm (with base: 76.5 cm), W. 53 cm;

probably from the collection of Stephen Girard (1750-1831).

Modern copies of the Athenaeum plaster

One made by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1895; another by Caproni

Brothers, Boston, before 1897.

4- Life mask 4-

Chinard 1930, xvii-xviii; Ch. S., "Salle de l'Orangerie. Exposition du centenaire de La Fayette," Bulletin des Musées de France, no. 7 (July, 1934), 122;

Réau 1964, 2:34-35, no. 142, pi. LXXI. I42A; Arnason, 1975,116 n. 198;

David Beaurain, "Découverte. Le Médaillon en marbre de Louis XV pour

l'Hôtel de Ville de Paris par Louis-Claude Vassé," Bulletin de l'histoire de Paris

et de l'Ile-de-France, nos. 122-124 (Paris, 1999), 216-218.

RELATE D WORK S

Lafayette in American revolutionary army uniform

Marbles with drapery

Formerly Paris, Hôtel de Ville, whereabouts unknown; commissioned by

Commonwealth of Virginia, 1784; completed in early 1786 and presented

to city of Paris (for commission and installation, see Lacroix 1894-1898,

5:364, 375; Lacroix 1900-1914, 3:454 n. i, 7:167-168; Bachaumont

1780-1789, 33:90-92, letter of 6 Oct. 1786); damaged 10 Aug. 1792 on

orders of Communal Assembly along with portraits of Necker, Louis XVI,

and Bailly (see Procès-verbaux de la Commune de Paris, 1894, 6; cf. Réau

1964, 1:88); in posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio, Paris,

15-17 Dec. 1828,18-19,

 no>

 5I: "Marbre blanc.—Buste de M. le général

Lafayette... ce buste, voté en 1791 par la commune de Paris, a éprouvé en Back view of cat. 45

26l
Lafayette in National Guard uniform

Marble

Musée du château de Versailles (MV1573; LP 630) (fig. 2); H. 68 cm (with

base: 83 cm), W. 58 cm, D. 30 cm; inscribed (twice) on truncation of proper

right arm: "houdon / fecit"; and superimposed: "houdon / an 1790"; probably shown in Salon of 1791 (withdrawn cat., 47, no. 225): "M. de la Fayette

demandé par une Société, pour en faire présent à Orléans" [Deloynes XVII,

no. 432] (published cat., 37, no. 484; see Scherf 1997,57 n. 22); must be the

bust recorded in Procès-verbaux de la Commune de Paris, indicating that the

National Guard of Paris, "en reconnaissance,... avaient offert... à la Garde

Nationale d'Orléans, le buste de M. de La Fayette" (Lacroix 1894-1898,

5:364); bought from the Citizen King Louis-Philippe by M. Letac for historical galleries at Versailles, 25 Dec. 1834 (1,000 francs); entered collection

4 July 1835 (Versailles cat. 1993, 211, no. 942, ill.).

Modem Plasters

Made after Versailles marble by the Atelier des musées nationaux; appear in

catalogues from 1893 until 1991 (see Rionnet 1996, 266-267, no. 1124).

Examples in the Musée de Versailles (inv. 6594), Musée de Tessé, Le Mans

(inv. L62o), and Musée Carnavalet, Paris (inv. 5.1514, E.8376).

Sèvres replica in biscuit porcelain (1903 and later)

Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University (Cambridge 1975-1976,151-153,

no. 59, ill.)

Samuel Barlow collection, New York (Arnason 1975,116 n. 199).

Medal

Medal of Lafayette engraved by Benjamin Duvivier, 1789, bronze. Obverse

represents Lafayette in left-facing profile wearing National Guard uniform;

reverse inscribed: VENGEUR DE LA LIBERTE DAN LES DEUX MONDES

(see Nocq 1911, 222, no. 238, pi. XVI). On 29 Oct. 1789 Duvivier offered to

do medals of Lafayette, Necker, and Bailly without charge; he offered that of

Lafayette "à la Garde nationale" (see Lacroix 1894-1898, 2:457, 467).

Boilly paintings

The bust of Lafayette in his National Guard uniform appears on the far right

side of the upper shelf at the back of both of Boilly's paintings of Houdon in

His Studio (cat. 66).

Alternate view of cat. 46

Alternate view of cat. 45

1. For the biography of Lafayette see A. Chateauneuf,

Le Général Lafayette. Mémoires authentiques (Paris,

1831); Mémoires, correspondance et manuscrits du Général

Lafayette, publiés par sa famille, 6 vols. (Paris, 1838);

Bayard Tuckerman, Life of General Lafayette, 2 vols.

(London, 1889); and Etienne Taillemite, La Fayette

(Paris, 1989).

2. Stanley J. Idzerda, éd., Lafayette in the Age of

the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers,

1776-1790 (Ithaca, NY, 1977—), 1:7.

3. Idzerda 1977,1:17.

4. Idzerda 1977,1:58-59.

5. Hart and Biddle 1911, 226-227; also see Kimball

1950, 63-66.

6. Hart and Biddle 1911, 227.

7. Hart and Biddle 1911, 228-229.

8. Hart and Biddle 1911, 229-230.

9. Letter from Jefferson to Governor Patrick Henry,

24 Aug. 1785 (see Hart and Biddle 1911, 232).

10. Letter from Barclay to Governor Patrick Henry

(see Hart and Biddle 1911, 231-232).

11. Hart and Biddle 1911, 232.

12. For a description of the event see Thiéry 1787,

2:684-686.

13. Stanley J. Idzerda, "Lafayette, Apostle of Liberty,"

in Flushing 1989,19.

14 Louis Réau, L'Art français aux Etats-Unis (Paris,

1926), 27.

15. Chinard 1930, xxi.

16. See Monticello 1993, 215, 451 n. 2; Jefferson

Papers (éd. 1993), 25:873. The bust has been painted

white several times, but tests by Tony Sigel at the

Straus Center for Conservation, Harvard University

Art Museums, have revealed the original terracotta

color.

17. Guilbert Chinard, éd., The Letters of Lafayette

and Jefferson (Baltimore and Paris, 1929), 56.

262
T7

George Washington (1732-1799)

Late 17803

White marble on white marble base

H. 48.58 cm (with base: 59.69 cm), W. 33.66 cm, D. 19.05 cm

Inscribed on truncation of proper right shoulder: houdon.f

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Anna Bing Arnold (inv. M.y6.io6)

Houdon considered his portrait of George Washington the most

important commission of his career. It followed the American

war of independence and the signing of the peace treaty by

America, France, and England in 1783, and it was born of the

desire on the part of Congress and the Virginia legislature to

recognize Washington's extraordinary contribution: "Uniting

to the Endowments of the Hero the Virtues of the Patriot And

exerting both in establishing the liberties of his country."

Initially, Houdon thought he would be able to realize his dream

of creating a life-size bronze equestrian statue, as Congress had

voted in 1783 to erect such a monument to Washington, and

Thomas Jefferson recommended Houdon for the work. Because

of the war debt, however, the equestrian project was postponed

and eventually abandoned.

On 22 June 1784 the Virginia legislature voted for another

monument: "a statue of General Washington, to be of the finest

marble and the best workmanship." Benjamin Franklin joined

Jefferson in recommending that Houdon be given the commission. Jefferson wrote to Washington from Paris on 10 December 1784, "I find that a Monsieur Houdon of this place, possesses

4

the reputation of being the first statuary in the world." Unlike

Houdon's other American sitters, Washington had never been

to Europe and had no desire to travel there after the war. Thus

Governor Harrison of Virginia asked the American artist Charles

Willson Peale to paint a full-length portrait of Washington to

serve as a model for the sculptor. Peale finished the painting by

the end of October 1784, and Jefferson wrote on 15 April 1785

that it had arrived safely in Paris. But Houdon told Jefferson he

would not undertake the work without studying Washington

from life, and he offered to travel to America to do so. Jefferson

reported to Washington, "He thinks that being there three weeks

with you would suffice to make his model of plaister [sic], with

which he will return here, and the work will employ him three

years." Jefferson, aware of Houdon's strong desire to do an

equestrian monument as well as the statue, wrote, "Nothing but

the expectations of this [equestrian monument] could have

engaged him to have undertaken this voyage, as the pedestrian

statue for Virginia will not make it worth the business he loses

by absenting himself. I was therefore obliged to assure him of

my recommendations for this greater work. Having acted in this

for the State, you will, I hope, think yourselves in some measure

bound to patronize and urge his being employed by Congress."

Houdon and Franklin sailed together from Le Havre on

28 July 1785, arriving in Philadelphia on 14 September. Houdon

263

+

AMERICA N PATRIOT S

i. Hondón,

Life Mask of

George Washington,

1785, plaster painted

terracotta color,

Pierpont Morgan

Library, New York.

2. Houdon, Bust of

George Washington,

1785, low-fired clay,

Mount Vernon,

Virginia, gift of the

Mount Vernon Ladies'

Association.

traveled to Mount Vernon with three assistants and stayed there

from 2 to 19 October, making a life mask of Washington (fig.

i), modeling a clay bust (fig. 2), and taking careful measurements for the full figure. He returned to Paris with the life mask

on Christmas day, and his workmen brought the plaster bust

9

and molds for the bust a little later. Houdon's statue and busts

of Washington all derive from these two works. By 16 December 1786 he had started to display the bust of Washington in

his studio, and by 27 January 1787 it was reportedly finished

and announced for the Salon. It is not reported which model

the sculptor exhibited, but none of the known busts by Houdon

shows Washington in military uniform: they are "à l'antique,"

like that at Mount Vernon; in a tunic and toga, as seen here; or,

more rarely, in a simple shirt and scarf.

Houdon prepared models of the full statue in both antique

and contemporary dress, and Washington, who expressed a

slight preference for the latter, was finally depicted in his military uniform as commander in chief of the revolutionary army

(fig. 3). Houdon combined the contemporary costume with

symbolic accoutrements, similar to those in his statue of the

maréchal de Tourville (see cats. 52-53), exhibited at the Salon

of 1781. Although the statue of Washington is a less baroque

composition, the Tourville was in many ways a prototype. The

military hero is shown standing; having hung up his sword and

cloak on the fasces, a Roman symbol for authority, which here

consists of thirteen rods representing the thirteen states, he

takes up his walking stick, on which he rests his gloved right

hand. The decision of the victorious military hero to trade his

sword for a plowshare was seen in both France and America as

recalling the life of the fifth-century BC Roman soldier Lucius

Quintus Cincinnatus, who was revered for having relinquished

military power to retire to his farm. The plow that appears

behind Washington alludes to this parallel. The statue was not

completed until 1792; Houdon exhibited a small plaster model

of it at the Salon of 1793; and the marble statue was installed in

the capitol building in Richmond in 1796.

The present marble bust is from the same model as the

terracotta at the Louvre and the plaster at the National Gallery

of Art. None is dated, but all three were probably executed

in the late 17805 when Houdon was completing the statue of

Washington. Compared with the statue, this bust is more introspective and less haughty, with the head leaning forward and

slightly to the right. The hair is short and carved in loose irregular strands, in contrast to that seen in the statue, which is long

and tied at the nape of the neck in the eighteenth-century style.

The antique Roman costume—a simple pleated tunic, a toga

draped over the left shoulder, a band diagonally across the chest,

presumably meant to carry a sword—gives Washington a look

of timeless wisdom and personal sacrifice. His brow is furrowed, his eyes deeply carved with the pupil receding slightly

under the lid, and his mouth softly modeled. Houdon used this

costume again in the marble bust of Washington made for the

Gallery of Consuls at the Tuileries in 1801, but in it the subject's

features are hardened, his face colder and more distant, while

the sculptor expended his skill on the decorative detail of the

band across the chest and the chiseled striations on the sides and

back of the sculpture.

Houdon's portraits established the primary iconography

for Washington in Europe and America and were copied and

265
imitated by many sculptors in the nineteenth century, particularly in the United States (see Related Works). Houdon himself was asked to produce between one and two hundred plaster

busts of Washington by Rodolphe-Ferdinand Grand in 1804, a

contract that was apparently never fulfilled.

ANN E L. POULET

PROVENANC E

Reportedly from the comte Henri de Bayle de Malmont at château de La Tour

du Vert, cousin and aide-de-camp of the marquis de Lafayette [unverified];

by descent to the comtesse of Fontgalland by 1931 (letter from her sister Louise

Marguerite de Lagrevol, Montelimar, 25 Aug. 1931; copy in LACMA archives);

acquired by Mrs. Thomas S. Kelly, née Sarah Hunter, New York, before 1964;

purchased from her by the museum (through Richard Feigen, New York) in

1976 with funds provided by Anna Bing Arnold.

EXHIBITION S

Worcester 1964, 86-90, ill.; Washington 1976,108, 366, no. 172, ill.

REFERENCE S

Fritz Neugass, "Houdon und seine amerikanischen Auftraggeber," Wdtkunst

34, no. 5 (Mar. 1964), 133-134, ill.; Arnason 1975,77, fig. 156, pi. 95; Eleanor

H. Gustafson, "Museum Accessions," The Magazine Antiques 3, no. 2 (Feb.

1977), 298, ill.; "Principales Acquisitions des musées en 1975," La Chronique

des arts, no. 1298 (Mar. 1977), 55, fig. 225; Los Angeles County Museum of

Art Handbook (Los Angeles, 1977), no. 100; Los Angeles County Museum of

Art Report [1975-1977] (Los Angeles, 1978), 27-29, ill.; Scott Schaefer, "Three

Centuries of European Sculpture: Bandini to Bartholdi," Apollo (Nov. 1986),

416-417, fig. 4; Scott Schaefer and Peter Fusco, European Painting and Sculpture in the Los Angeles County Museum of An (Los Angeles, 1987), 141, ill.

RELATE D WORK S

The bibliography for Houdon's portraits of Washington is vast. Primary

sources are Elizabeth Bryant Johnston, Original Portraits of Washington,

including Statues, Monuments, and Medals (Boston, 1882), 153-169; Chinard

1930; John Hill Morgan and Mantle Fielding, Life Portraits of Washington

and Their Replicas (Philadelphia, 1931), 89-113; Gustavus A. Eisen, Portraits

of Washington (New York, 1932), 3:757-818 (Houdon), 818-836 (copies

after Houdon); and Réau 1964,1:46, no. 204, 2:85-86, 405-406 (busts);

1:19-20, no. 36, pi. XXXII, 2:57-64, 281-289 (statue). A partial list of

known or documented works follows.

Mask

Pierpont Morgan Library, New York (inv. AZi29) (fig. i); H. 23.4 cm, W. 18.8

cm; plaster painted terracotta color. Supposedly in Houdon's posthumous

sale, Paris, 15-17 Dec. 1828 (perhaps under no. 73: "Un grand nombre de

masques de personnages célèbres, la plupart moulés de leur vivant");

acquired by Robert Walsh; passed on to Philadelphia sculptors John Struthers

3. Houdon, Statue of George Washington, 1792, white marble, Capitol

Building, Richmond, Virginia, Collection of the Library of Virginia.

and Ferdinand Pettrich (1798-1872); Pettrich took it to Rome (see memorandum of 1839 in Pierpont Morgan Library archives), where it was acquired

from Pettrich's widow by William Wetmore Story in 1872 (see W. W. Story,

"The Mask of Washington," Harper's Weekly [26 Feb. 1887], 144-146, ill.);

sold by his son Waldo Story to J. Pierpont Morgan by 1930 (see Johnston

1882,168-169; and Eisen 1932,3767-777, pis. 199, 219-221).

A mask of Washington was seen in Houdon's studio by Rembrandt

Peale in 1808 (see Hart and Biddle 1911,201; Morgan and Fielding 1931, 92).

Copies

Several "masks" in plaster, probably cast after a marble bust (possibly by

a French artist in London named Deville). Most renowned is the LeutzeStellwagen mask, private collection, Virginia; see Gustavus Eisen and Wilford S. Conrow, "The Leutze-Stellwagen Mask of Washington in the Corcoran

Gallery of Art and Its Connections," Art and Archeology 29 (1930), 65-75;

cf. Johnston 1882, 164; Morgan and Fielding 1931, 97-98; Eisen 1932,

3:783-786, pis. 198, 200-201, 204, 222-223.

Original low-fired clay model

Mount Vernon, Virginia (fig. 2); H. 70.48 (with base: 81.28 cm), W. 31.75 cm,

D. 20.16 cm; on plaster base; inscribed on truncation of proper right

266
AMERICA N PAIR IOT S

shoulder: "HOUDON F. 1785"; in Washington's study by 1787 and listed

there in inventory of 1810 as "plaister from the life ($100)" (Eugene E. Trussing, The Estate of George Washington, Deceased [Boston, 1927], 107,417); presented to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association by Colonel John A.

Washington, 1860 (Charles Seymour, "Houdon's Washington at Mount Vernon Re-Examined," GBA 35, no. 973 [Mar. 1948], 137-158, and references

therein).

Plasters

Houdon immediately made at least one plaster cast of the Mount Vernon bust,

which he presented to Franklin in Philadelphia and showed to Congress in

New York before departing for Paris. It was returned to Franklin by 30 Nov.

1785 and has since disappeared. The molds for the bust were sent to Paris

with Houdon's assistants, arriving in May 1786 (contemporary documents

and eyewitness descriptions published in Hart and Biddle 1911, 203-206).

Mid-nineteenth-century reproduction by Clarke Mills; presented by

Mills to Colonel John A. Washington before 1859

 an<^ installed in the library

at Mount Vernon (Seymour 1948,147-150, fig. n; see also Morgan and

Fielding 1931,112).

Houdon's Mount Vernon bust was used as a model by American

sculptor Henry Kirke Brown for his 1835-1856 bronze equestrian statue of

Washington (John S. Hallam, "Houdon's Washington in Richmond: Some

New Observations," The American Art Journal 10, no. 2 [Nov. 1978], 75).

Extant busts "à l'antique," without drapery

Plaster

Boston Athenaeum (inv. UH 150); H. 51 cm (with truncated base: 54.5 cm),

W. 36.4 cm, D. 28.7 cm; plaster originally painted terracotta color, now

painted white; remains of cachet de l'atelier on central back support; acquired

by Jefferson from Houdon in 1789 and shipped to the U.S. on his return

from France that fall; installed in Tea Room at Monticello, along with

Houdon's busts of Lafayette, Franklin, and John Paul Jones; all four busts

probably acquired at his posthumous sale, Jan. 1827, by Joseph Coolidge Jr.,

husband of Jefferson's granddaughter Ellen Randolph; deposited by him at

Boston Athenaeum in 1828 (accepted along with busts of Franklin and Jones,

ii Mar.); full ownership assigned to Athenaeum by Coolidge descendents

in 1912. See Monticello 1993, 68-69, 88, 220 n. 3, 436, 451 n. 14.

Marble

Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (inv. NM SK 1115); H. 49.9 cm (with base:

64.2 cm), W. 37.6 cm; acquired by German art dealer Julius Bóhler in Berlin,

ca. 1918; sold from his Munich gallery to Axel Beskow, art dealer in Stockholm (250,000 marks or 100,000 Swedish crowns); exhibited at the

Nationalmuseum; bought by Baron Hjalmar Linder and donated to the

museum in 1918 (162,000 crowns) (Eisen 1932,3:803-808, pis. 192, 207,

227; Cleveland 1975, no. 192, ill.).

Boilly paintings

In Boilly's Cherbourg and Paris paintings of Houdon's studio (see cat. 66)

a terracotta-colored bust of Washington is on the lower right-hand shelf

behind the Seated Voltaire.

Extant busts "à l'antique," with drapery

Terracotta

Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. RF 350); H. 43.7 cm (with base: 56 cm), W. 32

cm, D. 26.9 cm; collection of François-Hippolyte Walferdin (1795-1880);

donated to the museum by his heirs, 23 Mar. 1880 (Louvre cat. 1998,2:423,

ill.). Plaster reproductions made by Louvre workshop (see Rionnet 1996,

268, no. 1132).

Plaster

National Gallery of Art, Washington (inv. 1991.199.1); H. (with base) 53 cm;

painted grayish green; cachet de l'atelier on center back; cast from a piece mold,

base cast separately and attached; J. M. Bouvier Collection, Paris; French and

Co.; Newhouse Galleries, New York; Middendorf Collection, Washington, DC

(see Arnason 1975,77, fig. 155); donated by Robert L McNeil Jr. in 1991.

Marble on herm-shaped base

Musée national du château de Versailles (inv. MV 630; MR 2190); H. (with

rectangular self-base) 63 cm, W. 41 cm, D. 32 cm; inscribed on proper right

side: "houdon an 9" [1800-1801]; on front of plinth: "WASHINGTON";

ordered by minister of the interior Lucien Bonaparte for the Galerie des

Consuls, Tuileries palace, Apr. 1800 (François-Alphonse Aulard, Paris sous

le Consulat [Paris, 1909], 1:267); placed at Fontainebleau in 1805; entered

museum collection in 1834 (Versailles cat. 1993,374, no. 1751, ill.).

Bronze

Barbedienne made casts of this model in the nineteenth century; example

in the New-York Historical Society (inv. 1959.29); H. (with base) 53.02 cm,

W. 31.43 cm; inscribed before casting: on right edge "Houdon," on upper

back: "F. BARBEDIENNE. FONDEUR."

Bust in shirt and scarf

Formerly Schloss Rheinsberg, collection of Prince Henry of Prussia; plaster

or terracotta; documented in photograph of tower room (second floor of

palace) ca. 1930; whereabouts unknown (see Rheinsberg 2002, ill. p. 443).

Fondation Josée et René de Chambrun, château de La Grange; terracotta on white and gray marble base; H. 49 cm (with base: 62.5 cm), W. 37

cm, D. 29 cm; inscribed on base: "Washigton [sic]"; reportedly given to

Lafayette by U.S. Congress; at château de La Grange at Lafayette's death in

1834; by inheritance to his daughter Virginie, wife of Jules de Lasteyrie; by

inheritance to her daughter Pauline (1807-1882), wife of the comte Charles

de Rémusat; bequeathed to the Fondation Josée and René de Chambrun

by Mme Rémusat in 1963. The author would like to thank Guilhem Scherf

for providing this information. See also Rheinsberg 2002, ill. p. 445.

Documented busts (undesignated type)

Houdon intended to execute 100-200 plaster casts of his bust of Washington for 2 louis each (letter from Houdon to Grand, 9 Apr. 1804 [20 Germinal an XII]. The following day Grand wrote to Houdon postponing the

commission for financial reasons (BMV, F 946, nos. 80 and 81).

Anonymous sale, Paris, 13 Dec. 1824, plaster (with Voltaire and Franklin);

posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio, Paris, 15-17 Dec. 1828,

17, no. 35, plaster.

Misattribution

New-York Historical Society (inv. 1832.4); plaster; H. 59.69 cm; bust with

drapery in toga style; in Philadelphia in 1814, as entirely or partly (drapery)

made by "modeller" G. M. Miller of Philadelphia (Fourth Annual Exhibition

of the Columbian Society of Artists and the Pennsylvania Academy, no. 4; see

Morgan and Fielding 1931,100); donated by David Hosack in 1832 as coming from Houdon's posthumous sale of 1828 (Eisen 1932,3:757; Catalogue

267
of American Portraits in the New-York Historical Society [New Haven and

London, 1974], 2:859-860, no. 2179, ^ c^- Seymour 1948,156-157 n.

36, fig. 15).

Medal and engravings

Medal engraved by Benjamin Duvivier, commissioned by U.S. Congress to

commemorate the evacuation of Boston by British forces in 1776. Obverse

shows Washington in right-facing profile, after Houdon's bust. See Joseph

F. Loubat, The Medallic History of the United States of America, 1776-1876

(New York, 1878), 1-7, no. i, pi. i; Nocq 1911, 99, 200-201, no. 188, pi. XVI;

and Frances Davis Whittemore, George Washington in Sculpture (Boston,

1933), 14-19, pi. IV.

Engraving by Alexandre Tardieu, ca. 1790, in profile similar to that

on medal.

Engraving by Antoine Louis François Sergent, after miniature by the

marchioness de Bréhan; in profile with laurel wreath. See Wendy C. Wick,

George Washington. An American Icon. The Eighteenth-Century Graphic Portraits

[exh. cat., National Portrait Gallery] (Washington, DC, 1982), 48-49, ill.

Statue

Capitol Building, Richmond, Virginia (fig. 3); H. 187.96 cm; white marble;

inscribed on base: on front "WASHINGTON," and along proper right edge

"fait par. houdon. Citoyen, français, 1788." Finished by Nov. 1792, as Houdon

held a public viewing in his studio, 1-15 Dec. 1792 (journal de Paris nationale

335 [3°

 Nov

-

 I792

}' 224)'> installed in rotunda of Capitol Building, 14 May

1796 (Johnston 1882, 153-164; Hart and Biddle 1911, 208-225; Morgan

and Fielding 1931,109, no.i, ill.; Eisen 1932, 813-8155).

The Commune of Paris resolved on 20 Feb. 1792 to give Lafayette a marble statue of Washington by Houdon, executed "after the model of that he

made for the United States of America," for 12,000 livres plus 4,000 livres

for the marble (BMV, F 946, p. 83-89). Because of the rapid radicalization

of the Revolution, it is doubtful that this commission was ever carried out.

Model

Salon cat. 1793, 72, no. 122: "Le Général Washington, Statue esquisse en

plâtre, d'environ i pied."

Boilly paintings

A terracotta-colored model for the statue of Washington, in which he wears

contemporary civilian clothes, can be seen on the lower back shelf of both

paintings, just above the head of the Seated Voltaire (cat. 66).

Reproductions

See Ronald E. Heaton, The Image of Washington: The History of the Houdon

Statue (Norristown, PA, 1971): Boston Athenaeum (inv. UH 7.1847),

plaster cast by Francesco Cecchi, 1847 (see Harding 1984, 84); six bronze

casts, 1856-1860, by William J. Hubbard, Richmond (placed in Lexington, VA; Raleigh, NC; Columbia, SC; New York City; St. Louis, MO; originally Richmond, now Oxford, OH); plaster cast by Hubbard (Statuary Hall,

The Capitol, Washington, DC); sixteen bronze casts, 1909-1969, by

Gorham Co., New York.

Signature on cat. 47

1. Part of the inscription, written by James Madison, to

be carved on the pedestal; see Hart and Biddle 1911,182.

2. For documents relating to this commission see Réau

1964,1:63-64.

3. Hart and Biddle 1911,182.

4. Hart and Biddle 1911,186; Réau 1964,1:57.

5. Morgan and Fielding 1931, 36, no. 30, ill.; the

portrait has since disappeared.

6. Morgan and Fielding 1931, 90.

7. Heaton 1971, 8-9.

8. For documents relating to the commission and the

trip see Hart and Biddle 1911,182-225; Réau 1964,

1:57-62.

9. Hart and Biddle 1911, 206.

10. Salon of 1787, 51, no. 259: "Le Général Washington,

fait par l'Auteur dans la Terre de ce Général en

Virginie"; see Bachaumont 1780-1786,33:274, letter

of 16 Dec. 1786; and 34:82-83, letter of 27 Jan. 1787.

ii. See Von Halem (ed. 1990), 188-189, describing

a 1790 visit to Houdon's studio, where he saw the

finished model of the statue and a reduced model

of the rejected version in antique dress; see also

Friedrich Johann Lorenz Meyer, Fragmente aus Paris

im IVtenJahrderfranzôsischen Republik (Hamburg,

17971,2:236-238.

12 Réau 1964,1:60.

13 Réau 1964, 2:46, no. 2O4E, pi. XCII, mistakenly

published the Louvre bust as being dated 1786. It is

neither signed nor dated (Louvre cat. 1998, 2:423, ill.).

268
* Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

1789

White marble on white marble base

H. 56.5 cm (with base: 70.2 cm), W. 48 cm, D. 26 cm

Signed on truncation of proper right shoulder: houdonfij8()

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, George Nixon Black Fund (inv. 1934.129)

Thomas Jefferson was forty-one years old and a recent widower

when he went to France in the spring of 1784. Following the

American war of independence, Benjamin Franklin, John

Adams, and he were sent to Paris to negotiate trade agreements

and strengthen political ties. Jefferson was captivated by the aesthetic and intellectual atmosphere of the city and was soon visiting its architectural monuments, gardens, musical events,

salons, and artists' studios, including that of Houdon. In July

1785 Jefferson became American minister to the court of France,

replacing his great friend Franklin. In October he moved into

the Hôtel Langeac, a beautiful house on the Champs Elysées

designed in 1768 by the French architect Jean-FrançoisTherèse Chalgrin, which became a social center for Enlightenment intellectuals and visiting Americans. It was within easy

walking distance of the Faubourg du Roule, where Houdon

lived and worked.

Jefferson probably met Houdon through Franklin shortly

after arriving in Paris in August 1784. Franklin had already had

his portrait modeled by the sculptor in 1778 (see cat. 43), and

both he and Houdon were members of the masonic Loge des

Neuf Soeurs (for which Houdon had also executed the bust

of John Paul Jones in 1780; see cat. 44). Just as Jefferson was

settling in Paris, he learned of the Virginia Assembly's decision

to have a marble statue made of George Washington that "should

be the work of the most masterly hand," and he was asked "to

find out the best in any of the European states." Jefferson wrote

to Washington in December to recommend Houdon, adding, "I

sent for him and had some conversation on the subject."3

Jefferson and Franklin worked closely with Houdon to make

arrangements for payment, the size and iconography of the

statue, and the sculptor's trip to America in 1785 (see cat. 47).

Jefferson was later asked to have Houdon carve two marble portraits of his good friend Lafayette, commissioned by the Virginia

legislature the same year (see cat. 46).

All of the arts interested Jefferson, and he collected passionately while in Paris, visiting auction houses and dealers as well

as the Salon exhibition of 1787 (and probably those of 1785 and

1789), where he admired paintings by Jacques-Louis David and

Hubert Robert and saw Houdon's portraits of Lafayette, Washington, Louis XVI, and Prince Henry of Prussia (see cats. 50 and

54). Even before he went to France, he had compiled a list of fourteen classical sculptures, copies of which he hoped to acquire.65

The circumstances under which Houdon modeled the bust

of Jefferson are not recorded, probably because the two men

269

48

AMERICA N PAIR I OTS

made casual arrangements, sometime in the first half of 1789,

either at the sculptor's or the sitter's initiative. In the Salon that

opened on 25 August that year, Houdon exhibited a plaster bust

of "M. Sefferson [sic], Envoyé des Etas de Virginie." Although

no life mask of Jefferson by Houdon is known, Jefferson many

years later strongly implied that one was made in preparation

for the bust, just as Houdon had done for his portraits of Washington and Lafayette. A letter from Jefferson to James Madison

mentioned a life mask that the American sculptor John H.I.

o

Browere had taken of him (see fig. 2), recalling that "Browere...

said his operation would be of about 20 minutes and less

9

unpleasant than Houdon's method." Houdon's bust of Jefferson

was considered an excellent likeness, as noted in a Salon review:

"M. Houdon... distinguished himself in the portrait of M.

Jefferson, expressing his lively and witty character."

The present marble bust is signed and dated 1789, coinciding with the year of both the Salon exhibition of the plaster and

Jefferson's departure from Paris. Following the same format as

the known plasters, this portrait shows the famous American

in contemporary costume, wearing a pleated cravat with a ruffled

jabot and a plain vest and coat. His natural hair is long, full, and

slightly curled over his ears, and pulled back, tied, and wrapped

with a ribbon at the nape of his neck. Houdon cut the bust at

midchest, curving it to include the sitter's upper arms. The facial

expression projects determination, while the deeply carved eyes,

which look beyond the viewer, convey both intelligence and introspection. The modeling of the aging skin over the strong bone

structure of the cheeks and jaw is particularly sensitive. As is

often true of Houdon's premier marbles, the back of the truncation has delicately chiseled vertical striations, giving it a decorative, refined quality. The marble bust is said to have come

from the collection of Jefferson's friend, the liberal French nobleman Destutt de Tracy, but no early documents have been found

to confirm his ownership. Like Lafayette, Destutt de Tracy was

an aristocrat who renounced his title and joined the Third Estate

in 1789. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly, then served

in the army in 1792 under Lafayette. Jefferson, as author of the

American Declaration of Independence, was a hero to both men,

and it would not be surprising if one of them acquired his bust

in marble in the crucial year of 1789.

Several plaster busts of Jefferson with early histories have

survived (see fig. i). Apparently Jefferson displayed a bust of himself, presumably by Houdon, in the salon of the Hôtel Langeac

in Paris; this work was either given to or purchased by his Paris

banker, Rodolphe-Ferdinand Grand, who took it with him to

i. Houdon, Thomas

Jefferson, ca. 1789,

plaster, New-York

Historical Society

2. John H.I. Browere,

Life Mask of Thomas

Jefferson (detail),

15 Oct. 1825, painted

plaster, New York

State Historical Associaton, Cooperstown,

New York.

Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1794. Before leaving Paris in 1789,

Jefferson ordered at least seven terracotta-colored plaster busts

from Houdon — including portraits of Franklin, Lafayette,

Washington, Jacques Turgot, Voltaire, and himself —with

the intention of forming a "gallery of worthies" at Monticello

in the Roman fashion. He gave one portrait of himself to

David Rittenhouse in 1793.

271
Many artists portrayed Jefferson throughout his long life,

but Houdon's bust has had the greatest impact. It was used for

the profile on the obverse of the Jefferson dollar, minted in 1903

to commemorate the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase, and

it was chosen again in 1938 for the obverse of the American

nickel, a coin still in circulation today.

ANN E L. POULET

PROVENANC E

Supposedly from Count Antoine-Louis-Claude Destutt de Tracy (1754-1836),

a philosopher, author, and friend of the sitter, at chateau de Paray, Melun,

France; by inheritance to Destutt de Tracy's son-in-law, Louis Leopold Le

Clercq de Chateauvieux, Melun, by 1839; passed on to his son Ferdinand in

1868 and his grandson "P." in 1916 [unverified] (letter of 3 May 1934 from

P. Le Clercq de Chateauvieux, M FA curatorial files); with the art dealer Jean

L. Souffrice, Neuilly-sur-Seine, by 1932 (his certificate of expertise, 3 Oct.

1932, in MFA files); acquired by the museum (through Jacques Furst) from

Marie Sterner Gallery, New York, 5 Apr. 1934.

Back view of cat. 48

EXHIBITION S

Sculpture by Houdon, Paintings and Drawings by David [exh. cat., The Century

Association] (New York, 1947), no. 2, ill.; The French in America 1520-1880

[exh. cat., The Detroit Institute of Arts] (Detroit, 1951), 117-118, no. 290;

Alfred L. Bush, The Life Portraits of Thomas Jefferson [exh. cat., University of

Virginia, Museum of Fine Arts] (Charlottesville, 1962), 23-26, no. 4, ill. p.

24; Worcester 1964,102-105, ill.; Western Art [exh. cat., Museum of Fine

Arts] (Boston, 1971), 186, no. 84, ill.; London 1972,249, no. 385, pi. 54; Washington 1976, xl, 352, no. i, ill.; New York 1981, no. 7.

REFERENCE S

Edwin J. Hipkiss, "Portrait Sculpture by Houdon," Bulletin of the Museum of

Fine Arts 32, no. 193 (Oct. 1934), 70-74, ill. p. 72; Fiske Kimball, The Life

Portraits of Jefferson and Their Replicas (Philadelphia, 1944), 507; Réau 1964,

1:406-407, 2:34, no. 139, pi. LXVIII; Arnason 1975, 86-87, fig. 168, pis.

116-117; Monticello 1993, 230.

RELATE D WORK S

Documented busts

Salon cat. 1789, 50, no. 241: "M. Sefferson, Envoyé des Etas de Virginie"

(Corn littéraire, 15:572).

Posthumous sale of the contents of Houdon's studio, Paris, 15-17 Dec.

1828,18, no. 47.

Extant plasters

American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia (inv. 58.8.22); H. 60.3 cm

(with base: 73.7 cm), W. 51.9 cm; painted grayish white; scratched into plaster at middle of underside of back: TJ; probably given by Jefferson to David

Rittenhouse in 1793 (see letter of 7 Jan. 1793 in Jefferson Papers [ed. 1993],

25:31); gift of Elizabeth Rittenhouse Sergeant from her father's estate, 1811;

"bronzed" at the order of the society upon reception; recorded there by

Jonathon Williams in 1814, by William Short in 1819 (letter to Jefferson,

2i Oct. 1819, in Massachusetts Historical Society Colkctions, ser. 7,1900,1:289,

cited in Kimball 1944, 507 n. 42); and in A Catalogue of Portraits and Other

Works of An in the Possession of the American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia, 1961), 52-53, fig. 14.

New-York Historical Society (inv. 1939.1) (fig. i); H. (with base) 71.12

cm, W. 46.04 cm; signed at truncation of proper right shoulder: "houdon f';

given by Mrs. Laura Wolcott Gibbs in 1839; said to have been given by

Jefferson to his friend Hugh Williamson (Catalogue of American Portraits in

the New-York Historical Society [Yale, 1974], 400-401, no. 1049, ^-)-

Musée de Blérancourt (inv. 63~C-io); purchased by Edmond Courty,

Châtillon-sous-Bagneux; acquired from him by museum in 1963 (Max

Terrier, "Le Buste de Thomas Jefferson par Houdon," Les Amis du Musée de

Blérancourt. Jefferson [Paris, 1965], 6-8).

272
AMERICA N PATR I OT S

Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Monticello; painted terracotta color; H.

(with base) 73 cm; cachet de l'atelier on back; said to have been purchased at

Houdon's posthumous sale, Paris, 15-17 Dec. 1828, no. 47, by Comte Perez;

by inheritance to the comte Franceschini d'Accianelli; by purchase to J. L.

SoufFrice, Paris; acquired by Roy Chalk in 1962; Christie's sale, 29 May 1987,

16-19, no. 8, where acquired by Mr. and Mrs. E. G. Nicholson; acquired by

Gilder Lehrman Collection in 1993 (see Monticello 1993, 230, no. 101, ill. p.

231); gift of Gilder Lehrman Collection to Monticello in 2001.

Modern copies

In the 19405 Caproni Brothers of Boston made at least two plaster copies

of the marble in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (report of Arthur Beale

in M FA archives).

Medal

John Reich, Indian Peace Medal, 1801, distributed by Lewis and Clark to

important Indian leaders in the course of their expedition; see Jefferson's

quote "taken from Houdon's bust" (Washington 1976, xl, 352); and Charlottesville 1962, 25.

Boilly paintings

A terracotta-colored bust of Jefferson appears in both of Boilly's paintings of

Houdon in His Studio (cat. 66) in the center of the lower back shelf.

Signature on cat. 48

1. See Howard C. Rice, L'Hôtel de Langeac, Jefferson's

Paris Residence, 1785 -1789 (Paris, 1947).

2. Letter from Governor Harrison, 20 July 1784, cited

in Hart and Biddle 1911,184-185.

3. Letter of 10 Dec. 1784, cited in Hart and Biddle 1911,

186-187.

4. For a discussion of the decorative arts, textiles, paintings, and sculpture amassed by Jefferson in Paris see

Monticello 1993, 23-34,443-444 nn. 27-63.

5. Jefferson described the Salon in a letter to John

Trumbull, 30 Aug. 1787; see Jefferson Papers (ed.

1955), 12:69.

6. Monticello 1993, 28-29.

7. Salon cat. 1789, 50, no. 241.

8. See David Meschutt, "'A Perfect Likeness': John H.I.

Browere's life Mask of Thomas Jefferson," The American Art Journal 2i, no. 4 (1989), 5-25, figs, i, 6,7.

9. Letter of 18 Oct. 1825, cited in The Writings of

Thomas Jefferson, ed. Albert Ellery Bergh (Washington,

DC, 1907), 19:287; see also Hart and Biddle 1911, 249,

and Kimball 1944, 505.

10. Journal general de France, 9 Sept. 1789 (Deloynes

XVI, no. 426): "M. houdon. ce sculpteur, toujours

emploie avec raison dans le genre, s'est distingué dans

le portrait de M. Jefferson, dont il a exprimé le caractère vif et spirituel."

11. The banker Jean-Antoine Gautier wrote Jefferson on

24 Mar. 1795 to inform him of Grand's death the preceding year and to convey a message from Grand's

son: "Le Buste dont vous avies décoré le Sallon de

Passy, et qui est cher à toute la famille, sera placé dans

le Sallon de Sa nouvelle demeure près de Lausanne et

toutes les occasions de vous témoigner, Monsieur, le

Sentiment que nous conservons de vos bontés, lui

seront, comme à moi, véritablement précieuses" (see

Jefferson Papers [ed. 2000], 28:317). This may be the

marble bust of Jefferson now in Boston. It is the

author's intention to consult the Grand family

archives.

12. See Monticello 1993,15-16, 215-223,451 n. 2.

*3 • Jefferson's Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal

Records and Miscellany, 1767-1826, ed. James A. Bear

Jr. and Lucia C. Stanton (Princeton, 1997), 1:738 n. 68.

14. For a study of the portraits of Jefferson see Charles

Henry Hart, "Life Portraits of Thomas Jefferson,"

McClure's Magazine n, no. i (May 1898), 47-55.

15. See Washington 1976, xl, 352, no. i.

273

Robert Fulton (1765-1815)

1803-1804

White marble on round blue-gray veined marble base

H. 60.4 cm (with base: 73.6 cm), W. 49 cm.

Signed and dated on truncation of proper right shoulder: houdonfan XII

The Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of Dexter M. Ferry Jr. (inv. 49.23)

49

The last in Houdon's series of portraits of great American men

were those of the inventor, artist, and engineer Robert Fulton

and of Fulton's intimate friend, the diplomat, entrepreneur, and

poet Joel Barlow (fig. i). Executed in 1803, the two portraits,

commissioned when both were living in Paris, may have been

conceived as pendants. They were shown together at the Salon

of 1804.

Fulton, best known today for his development of commercially viable steamships on the Hudson and Mississippi Rivers,

was born on a farm in Little Britain, Pennsylvania, 14 November 1765, to immigrant Scotch-Irish parents. He lost his father

when he was six and was educated by his mother and a local

schoolmaster. He also read widely as a child. When about fifteen,

he was apprenticed to a Philadelphia silversmith, beginning a

trade for which he had little inclination. But he managed to buy

back his indenture and establish himself as a miniature painter,

manifesting at an early age not only his artistic skill but his

ambitious and independent nature and his interest in making

money. Obtaining a letter of introduction to Benjamin West,

the American painter residing in London, he left the United

States in late 1786 and did not return until twenty years later.

Fulton studied to become a professional artist there and formed

a deep friendship with West and his family, the first in a series

of attachments to successful older men. He exhibited at the

Royal Academy in the spring of 1791, and a series of portrait

commissions followed.

While painting in Devonshire in 1793, Fulton invented an

improved marble-cutting and polishing instrument that won a

silver medal at the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Commerce and Manufactures in 1794. He became interested in

improving the transportation system in the area, particularly

the canals, and came up with an ingenious idea for substituting a system of locks. This led him to abandon painting for engineering, a field for which he had a great affinity. In March 1796

he wrote and published A Treatise on the Improvement of Canal

Navigation..., arguing in the preface that invention consists of

recombining old parts and concepts in new and better ways, a

defense against those who accused him of relying too much on

the ideas of others: "the component parts of all new machines

may be said to be old; but it is nice discriminating judgment,

which discovers that a particular arrangement will produce a

new and desired effect... [and] is usually dignified with the term

Genius." The publication demonstrated his remarkable ability to place his engineering proposals into a visionary global

275
i. Houdon, Joel Barlow, 1804, marble, White House Collection,

Washington, DC.

2. Houdon, Robert Fulton, 1803-1804, plaster painted a terracotta color,

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

social, moral, and economical context, prefiguring the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century. The Treatise was well

received but led to no lucrative projects in England.

Fulton left for France in the summer of 1797. Enjoying the

cultural and social life in Paris, he continued proselytizing his

theory of canal construction and trying to sell his design for

a torpedo-carrying submarine, which he promoted as such an

efficient war machine that it would end all threat of war on

sea or land. Having failed to convince the English, he took the

plan to the French government in December 1797. Although he

demonstrated the viability of his submarine, the Nautilus, in the

Seine and blew up a ship with one of his torpedoes, Napoleon's

administration decided not to work with Fulton.

It was also in 1797 that Fulton first met Ruth Baldwin Barlow, then her husband, Joel, who was just returning from serving as American minister to Algiers. A very close relationship

developed among them, and they lived together in a harmonious ménage à trois for the next seven years. Barlow was twelve

years older than Fulton and a wealthy and influential figure.

He provided both financial and emotional support to the young

inventor, who had become famous but had not made the fortune

to which he aspired.

Fulton constructed his first steam-powered boat in Paris in

August 1803, demonstrating it on the Seine to public acclaim.

It may have been partly in celebration of this event that he and

Barlow had Houdon model their portraits. The plaster busts of

Fulton and Barlow, now in the collection of the National Academy of Design, are both signed and dated "houdon f. an XII"

and are inscribed "Fulton / 38 ans" and "Barlow / 50 ans,"

respectively. It is most unusual for Houdon to include the name

and age of the sitter on a bust, suggesting that it was probably

done at the request of the sitters and that the busts were conceived as a pair. Both were exhibited by Houdon at the Salon of

1804, but the material was not indicated in the catalogue.

Because Houdon usually first showed plasters, executing marbles or bronzes later, it is likely that he did so in this case as well.

Further evidence that the busts were conceived as a pair

(and that Fulton owned two examples) is found in an unpublished letter from Barlow to Fulton dated 17 July 1811. Barlow had

hoped that Fulton would resume living with him and his wife

276
AMERICA N PATRIOT S

in Washington, but Fulton had married Harriet Livingston in

January 1808 and was living with her in New York. Barlow wrote,

"Have you rec[eive]d—the four boxes.—two of french china £

two of busts, yours and mine. I sent you the bill of lading."

Houdon's bust of Fulton is one of his most beautiful late

works. In the present marble he has captured the determination

and ambition of this extraordinary self-made American as well

as his sensitive visionary and artistic character. The sitter's shortcropped, tousled curly hair is carved with romantic flair and

contrasts with the simplicity of his vest and coat. As he often

did in his early nineteenth century portraits, Houdon played

with linear pattern, contrasting the horizontal folds of the cravat with the finely pleated jabot, and he finished the lower part

of the truncation with a decorative pattern of horizontal striations, which are continued on the back of the bust. A similar

treatment can be found in his 1808 portraits of Napoleon and

Josephine (cats. 63, 64).

Most likely it was Joel Barlow who commissioned the marble portraits of Fulton and himself, for Fulton was not in a financial position to pay for them at that time. On 12 June 1813,

however, following Barlow's death, when Fulton had made his

fortune in partnership with Robert Livingston in a steamboat

business in America, he wrote an affectionate letter from New

York to Ruth Barlow in Paris:

PROVENANC E

Supposedly from the family of Vice Admiral Decrès, minister of the navy

under Napoleon, at La Chapelle, Vieille Foret, France [unverified]; by descent

to Philippe Decrès; Percy A. Rockefeller, New York; Jonce I. McGurk, New

York; by bequest to Mrs. Emilie McGurk Simpson; purchased from Howard

Young Gallery, New York (i East 57th Street); given to the Detroit Institute

of Arts by Dexler M. Ferry in 1949.

EXHIBITION S

Worcester 1964,124-127, ill.; Cleveland 1975, no. 193, ill.

REFERENCE S

P. L. Grigaut, "Houdon's Marble Bust of Robert Fulton," Bulletin of the Detroit

Institute of Arts 28, no. 4 (1948-1949), 79-80, ill. cover page; P. L. Grigaut,

"A Marble Bust of Robert Fulton by Houdon," Art Quarterly 12, no. 3 (summer 1949), 257-262, ill.; Réau 1964,1:465-467; 2:49, no. 227; Arnason

1975, loo-ioi, 119 n. 247, fig. 195, pis. 133, i44d; Cynthia Owen Philip,

Robert Fulton, A Biography (New York, 1985), 151.

RELATE D WORK S

Unspecified material

Salon of 1804, 96, no. 639 [probably plaster]. Florence Ingersoll-Smouse,

"Houdon en Amérique," RAAM 23 (Jan.-June 1914), 287, mistakenly states

that the bust shown at the Salon was marble; this is repeated in Giacometti

1918-1919, 2:176.

Hudon [sic] you remember did Mr Barlows Bust while

I was in Paris, [in margin: "The bust was executed costing 6000 francs which J Barlow now has"] I wish him

to do one for me from it in white marble of the best kind

and in his best style, provided it can be done for 1000

francs, if so let him set about it immediately and I will

remit the money.... I should also like to know what M

Hudon would charge for a Bust in his best style of

Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Barlow and Self. This is

fine if he will do them for 5000 francs he may commence and I will remit funds if not please to let me know

his price.

It is not known whether or not this commission was carried out. Fulton died only two years later at the age of fifty-two.

ANN E L. POULET

Back view of cat, 49

277
Documented plasters

Posthumous sale of contents from Houdon's studio, Paris, 15-17 Dec. 1828,

18, no. 50: "Plâtre. — Buste de R. Furton [sic], inventeur des bateaux à vapeur";

sold along with busts of d'Alembert and Buffon for 9 francs (Réau 1964,1:119).

Formerly Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. 3574 F); H. 57 cm; inscribed

"Houdon an XII" [1804]; given to the Louvre by M. de Valcour[t] around

1850 (see Clarac 1853, 6:230, no. 3574 F., pi. 1125; and Réau 1924^ 83 n.2).

Present location unknown.

Extant plasters

National Academy of Design, New York (inv. 55-8); painted cream color;

H. 60 (with base: 73.2 cm), W. 48.6 cm; signed and dated on truncation of

proper right arm: "houdon an XII"; inscribed on truncation of proper left

arm: "fulton / 38 ans"; closed back; white seal of the NAD applied in 1909;

purchased from American Academy of Fine Arts in 1842 (NAD minutes,

3 May 1909; 7 June 1909; 18 Oct. 1924; see Réau 1964, 2:49,

 H

9

 n

-

 247)-

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 1989.329) (fig. 2); painted

pale beige terracotta color; signed on proper right shoulder: "houdon f";

open at back; differs from the marble in its shorter truncation, costume

(a cape worn over the coat), configuration of the ruffle of the jabot, and

treatment of the hair. This bust was with Rosenberg £ Stiebel, New York,

by 1977 (see Art News 76, no. 8 [Oct. 1977], 19); collection of Mrs. Sarah

Hunter Kelly, New York; sale Christie's, New York, 20 Nov. 1982, no. 317;

Wendell Cherry collection; purchased by museum at his sale, Christie's,

New York, i Dec. 1989, no. 12, through the Wrightsman Fund (see Arnason

1975, 119 n. 247; Washington 1976, 61, 360, no. 108, ill.; and James D.

Draper, in "Recent Acquisitions: A Selection 1989-1990," The Metropolitan

Museum of Art Bulletin 48 [1990], 29-30, ill.).

Dalva Brothers, Inc., New York; white plaster with traces of terracotta

color; H. (with base) 73.66 cm, W. 29.53 cm; open at back; inscribed on

proper left arm truncation: "R. Fulton," and on proper right arm truncation:

"houdon"; differs from other plasters and the marble: younger, gentler expression; hair more pulled back from forehead; jabot fuller, spilling out over the

vest and coat; three buttons rather than one on the coat and no lapel below

collar; and no decorative striations on the lower front. Reportedly the plaster from Houdon's posthumous sale in 1828 (no. 50); purchased ca. 1838 in

Paris by M. Dejean; acquired by the cousin of Alfred de Vigny; in collection

of M. Dubosc, Le Havre, in 1919 (Giacometti 1918-1919, 2:176-181; Giacometti 1929, 2:56-59, ill. opp. p. 56; Réau 1964,1:49, 2:467).

Modern copies

Musée de la Marine, Paris; marble after the plaster given by M. de Valcourft]

to the Louvre (see Clarac and Maury 1826-1853, 6:230; Jean Destrem,

"Musée de la Marine du Louvre," GBA 61, 4th ser. [1919], 383; Réau 1964,

2:467; cf. Henry W. Dickinson, Robert Fulton, Engineer and Artist, His Life

and Works [London, 1913]).

National Academy of Design, New York; plaster and bronze copies after

the plaster in their collection in 1909 (NAD archives)

Juv. Williams Co., New York, cast bronze copies after the plaster now

in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; an example in the New-York Historical

Society (inv. 1909.29); H. 71.76 cm, W. 46.99 cm.

Signature on cat. 49

1. Salon cat. 1804: "638. Buste de M. Barlow. 639.

Buste de M. Fulton."

2. For Fulton's biography see Dickinson 1913; and

Philip 1985.

3. Philip 1985, 26.

4. Cited in Philip 1985, 47.

5. The portrait of Barlow is painted plaster (inv. 57-8);

H. 58.5 cm (with base: 72 cm.), W. 50.2 cm; purchased

from the American Academy of Fine Arts in 1842. For

the portrait of Fulton see Related Works.

6. Houghton Library, Harvard University, bMSAm

1448 (495).

7. Houghton Library, Harvard University, bMSAm 1448

(676), published in part in Washington 1976, 61,360.

278
Louis XVI, King of France (1754-1793)

Dated 1790

White marble with self-base

H. 96 cm, W. 74 cm, D. 41 cm

Inscribed on base: HOUDON / F. 1790

Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon (inv. MV 1834; MR 2185)

"When King Louis XV died on 10 May 1774, the dauphin was

with the dauphine. A terrible noise like thunder was heard in

the front room of the apartment: it was the throng of courtiers

deserting the expired king's antechamber and coming to pay

tribute to the young king's new power. He reportedly exclaimed

at the time: 'What a burden! And no one's taught me anything.

I feel as if the universe is about to fall on me.'" D'Angiviller

hired the painter Joseph Siffred Duplessis and the sculptor

Augustin Pajou to do the king's official portraits (see fig. i). At

the Salon of 1777 Pajou's bust of Louis XVI was displayed beside

one by Louis-Simon Boizot (fig. 2). The following year the

members of the stock exchange wrote d'Angiviller to request

the marble for a bust of the king that they would commission

from Houdon. In a letter of 15 November 1784 Houdon reminded

d'Angiviller of the audience he had requested with the king and

told him of the stroke of luck "that procured me a visit from M.

Thierry [the king's personal valet], whom I had not had the

honor of knowing and to whom I replied, when he asked me

if I had already done the bust of His Majesty, that I was hired

three years ago to do it for an organization and was still waiting

to be provided with the opportunity to see the king." Houdon

exhibited the marble bust at the Salon of 1787 (no. 252).

Louis XVI was thirty-three years old when the 1787 bust

was done, and he was physically unattractive, his body heavy

from overeating; he had "solid good sense, wit, but a weakness

of character that led him to yield easily to everyone's advice.3"

"To get an idea of his personality," said his brother the comte

d'Artois, "imagine lubricated balls of ivory that you struggle

in vain to keep together." Creating a noble portrait of him was

a challenge, but Houdon sculpted the monarch in half-length,

his head slightly raised and turned toward his right, wearing

a wig with two long curls tied in a ribbon at the nape of his neck.

With his courtly attire he wore the jewel of the Order of the

Golden Fleece attached by a simple ribbon to a watered silk sash

across his chest; a vast mantle embroidered with the badge of

the Order of the Holy Spirit enveloped his shoulders and flowed

around the base of the sculpture. He is portrayed gazing into the

distance. This arrangement, the baroque effect of the drapery—

which Houdon also used, at the same Salon, in the busts of

Pierre André de Suífren and François-Claude-Amour, marquis

de Bouille — and the meticulous representation of the watered

silk and the embroidery made one forget the monarch's shortcomings and conferred on him a certain majesty. But the Salon

critics were not fooled: "Here is the king: his popularity and

279

50

+

T H E COURT S O F EUROP E

i. Augustin Pajou,

Louis XVI, King of

France, 1779, marble,

Musée national du

château de Versailles.

2. Louis-Simon Boizot,

Louis XVI, King of

France, 1777, marble,

Musée national du

château de Versailles.

modesty are rendered through the affectation of mixing him

in with the others [busts], and even of placing him at the far

end, where he is apt to be jostled and knocked over by all the

passersby."

In 1787 the power of the monarchy was deteriorating. On

23 June 1789, before the deputies of the Estates General, Louis

XVI spoke for the last time as the one in charge. Then came

14 July, the October riots, and the royal family's forced return to

Paris from Varennes. A year later, on 14 July 1790, the Feast of

the Federation featured a "regenerated society" in which it still

seemed possible to unite the Nation, the Law, and the King. It

was within this context that the last commissions for busts of

the sovereign came from the municipalities: Houdon competed

with Boizot and Louis-Pierre Deseine in Paris and Strasbourg.7

The bust he executed for the Paris city hall was a replica of the

one he had exhibited in 1787; and it may have been destroyed

on 10 August 1792, when "a member of the assembly proposed

knocking down the busts of Louis XVI, Bailly, La Fayette, Necker,

all charlatans of patriotism, whose presence is painful to the

eyes of good citizens.... Forty arms rose up as one to cast down

those false idols: they fell and were reduced to dust amid thuno

derous applause from the gallery."

In 1816 a bust of Louis XVI by Houdon was displayed alongside one of Marie-Antoinette by Félix Lecomte at the Musée des

monuments français (nos. 367 and 368). Alexandre Lenoir,

founder of the museum, noted that "the marble busts of the

king of France, Louis XVI, and of his wife, Marie-Antoinette,

were bequeathed to me for the museum by the late abbé Leblond

[Gaspard Michel], who, in order to preserve them, exchanged

them with the Comité de l'instruction publique for maps and

9

other objects useful for education." In a letter to the minister

of the interior on 23 January 1816, in response to a claim made

by Houdon, Lenoir recalled the conditions under which the

bequest was made: "Upon the return of the king [Louis XVIII],

I entrusted these two monuments to the museum and hastened

to make them available for the public's enjoyment. The bust of

Louis XVI... completes the chronological representation of

the kings of France, starting with Saint Louis." No mention

was made at the time or subsequently of the date 1790 that is

legible on the base.

In 1827 a marble bust of Louis XVI by Houdon was put up

for sale in Paris. The previous owner, Balthasar Georges Sage,

a chemist and mineralogist, had a collection of curiosities for

which he had written and published the inventory in 1807 and

again in 1816. In the preface to the 1816 edition he wrote that

he had just "acquired a marble of Louis XVI done by the famous

Houdon." As a member of the Institut de France since its

founding, Sage would have had the opportunity to get to know

the sculptor; the silence of the latter on this subject after 1816

could be understood if Sage owned the bust shown at the Salon

of 1787. The bust exhibited during the same period at the Musée

des monuments français (that is, the Versailles bust) would then

be identical with the one shown at the Hôtel de Ville, Paris,

miraculously spared on 10 August 1792.

CLAUDE VANDALLE

28l
PROVENANC E

Possibly from the Paris city hall, 1790; exhibited at the Musée des monuments français, 1816 (no. 367); Musée du Louvre, warehouse, then modern

sculpture galleries (marked so that works could be reunited with those already

stored in the Louvre's Beauvais wing), 15 Sept. 1821 (see Clarac 1853,6:224);

Saint-Cloud (the dauphin's billiards room), 1824; Versailles, ca. 1832.

EXHIBITION S

Versailles 1937, no. 254; Marie-Antoinette, archiduchesse, dauphine et reine

[exh. cat., Musée national du château] (Versailles, 1955), no. 131; Chicago

1962-1963, no. 134.

REFERENCE S

Clarac 1853, 6:224,no- 357J> pi-

 II24¡ Versailles cat. 1837,59,403; Versailles

cat. 1839, 314, no. 568; Versailles cat. 1854, 2:154, no. 2041; Délerot and

Legrelle 1857,175-176; "Inventaire des richesses d'art de la France," Archives

du Musée des monuments français (Paris, 1883-1897), 1:428-429, 3:196-

197; Giacometti 1918-1919,1:103-104, 2:155-165, 3:89-91; Réau 1964,

1:89-91,330,455-456; 2:37, no. 151, pi. 86; Arnason 1976,83-84,119 nn.

195 and 196, fig. 159; Versailles 2001-2002. Back view of cat. 50

RELATE D WORK S

Bust of Louis XVI; marble; commissioned by members of the stock exchange;

displayed at Salon of 1787, no. 252.

Copy of the bust of 1787; done for the commune of Strasbourg in 1791;

destroyed in the fire at Strasbourg city hall in 1870.

B.-G. Sage sale, Paris (no. 203 bis); life-size bust of Louis XVI; white

marble (bust of 1787?).

Art market in late nineteenth century; busts of Louis XVI and MarieAntoinette as dauphin and dauphine, attributed to Houdon; noted in Intermédiaire des chercheurs et des curieux (10 July 1913). Many forgeries seem

to have circulated at the time. In his mémoire to Bachelier in 1794, Houdon

wrote that he had "jamais travaillé que pour les particuliers ou l'étranger,

excepté Tourville."

Plaster cast of the Versailles bust done in the Louvre workshops in 1889

(L 877 bis); listed in sales catalogue beginning in 1893. A copy was shown

Signature on cat. 50

at the Musée de sculpture comparée, palais du Trocadéro (Rionnet 1996,

267, no. 1125).

Duke of Northumberland sale, summer 1989, Monaco, no. 29, life-size

plaster bust of Louis XVI, inscribed: "Houdon f. 1790."

1. On the private life of Marie-Antoinette see Campan

(éd. 1988).

2. AN, O2 19174,393; cited in Giacometti 1918-1919,

1:103; and Réau 1964,1:73.

3. J. M. Plane, Physiologie ou l'art de connaître les

hommes sur leur physionomie (Meudon, 1797), 2:300.

4. In 1761 the Order of the Golden Fleece was conferred on Louis, dauphin of France, by Charles III,

king of Spain.

5. Bouille made a name for himself by repressing

the mutiny of the garrison at Nancy and planning

the king's escape to Varennes. His bust was in the

collection of his descendants.

6. Mémoires secrets, letter 3, on the Salon of 26 Aug. 1787.

7. Versailles 2001-2002,143, 229, nos. 38 and 78.

Boizot sculpted a plaster bust of Jacques Necker in

1789 that he intended to execute in marble and place

at city hall, but Houdon obtained the commission

(see cat. 32). This bust is very close in composition

to a lost bust of Louis XVI by Boizot and can be compared to Houdon's bust of the king. The Journal de

Paris reported on 28 Feb. 1790 that "the king has

just ordered Houdon to do a bust of him in marble,

which His Majesty wished to donate to the Commune." See Mme Haug-Levallet, "Le Buste de Louis

XVI par Houdon à Strasbourg," BSHAF (1937), 53-56.

8. Maurice Vachon, L'Ancien hôtel de ville de Paris;

quoted in Réau (éd. 1994), 325. Not all of the busts

were destroyed, however; the bust of Lafayette was

salvaged and repaired by Houdon (see cats. 45-46).

9. Lenoir 1800-1806,124-125. At the start of the

Revolution, Leblond, an archaeologist, became a

member of the arts commission charged with eliminating the suppressed archives and libraries, for which

he became the librarian in 1791. When the Institut de

France was organized, he was named a member of the

antiquities committee. He was part of the legislative

body under the Consulate, retiring in 1802.

10. Houdon's claim concerned the bust he had

executed "shortly before the Revolution for members

of the stock exchange" ("Inventaire des richesses,"

1883-1897,1:428-429).

11. Descriptions des objets d'arts de la collection de

Balthasar Georges Sage (Paris, 1816).

282
Marie-Adélaïde de France,

called Mme Adélaïde (1732-1800)

Dated 1777

White marble on gilded bronze base and white marble counterbase

H. 81.0 cm (with base: 99 cm), W. 56.5 cm, D. 34.0 cm

Inscribed on back: A. HOUDON, FECIT, ANNO 1777

Musée du Louvre, Paris, département des sculptures, Gift of the heirs to A. Veil-Picard, 1947 (inv. RF 2595)

Mme Adélaïde was forty-five years old when Houdon did this

bust. She was the fourth child of Louis XV, after Louise-Elisabeth, called Mme Infante, then duchess of Parma; her twin

sister, Henriette of France; and the dauphin, father of the future

Louis XVI. In 1752, she was the eldest of the "Filles de France"

at court, always dominating her younger sister, called Mme

Victoire. As a young woman, she resembled her father: "If the

portraits I have seen of Louis XV are accurate, [Mme Adélaïde]

resembled him and had his commanding gaze. Mme Victoire

was shorter and stouter." Her contemporaries were harsher in

assessing her character: "Mme Adélaïde... was imperious and

quick-tempered... .she once had a charming face; but never did

beauty disappear as quickly as her own [she] had more wit

than Mme Victoire; but she absolutely lacked kindness, the only

thing that inspires love for illustrious people; curt manners,

a harsh voice, and a clipped pronunciation made her extremely

imposing. She took the idea of the prerogatives of rank to an

extreme." When the king's daughters shut themselves up with

him as he lay dying of smallpox, a dangerous act, it elicited

only indifference: "Mesdames were not loved; they had given

evidence on too many occasions of the weakness of their character and of their resulting insincerity and had long since ceased

to be of interest." On Louis XVI's accession to the throne,

Mme Adélaïde attempted to play a political role by advising her

nephew, but her influence remained limited. Despite the attachment Louis XVI felt to his aunts, they were disliked by the queen

for their haughtiness and "were scarcely seen [at court]." The

eventful escape of Mme Adélaïde and Mme Victoire to Italy

from their Bellevue estate in 1791 filled the newspapers. They

died in exile in Trieste.

The rich collection of portraits of Mme Adélaïde may have

flattered her vanity. Jean-Marc Nattier painted her features

several times, with various accoutrements: as Diana (1745) and

as a musician (1758). A wonderful study for a painting exhibited at the Salon of 1751 shows a round face with large eyes and

does recall her father's likeness. The bust by Jean-Baptiste II

Lemoyne (fig. i) is equally reminiscent of the paternal image.

That sumptuous marble was commissioned in 1763 by the

marquis de Marigny, director of the Bâtiments du Roi at the

o

time. Two years later, forgetting that he had ordered the bust,

he referred Lemoyne to Mesdames for payment; in the end,

however, it was the royal administration that paid the bill. A

comparable misadventure befell Houdon a few years later: Mme

Adélaïde commissioned a bust of herself in 1776 but told the

283

5i

7

+

T H E COURT S O F EUROP E

i. Jean-Baptiste II

Lemoyne, Mme

Adélaïde, ijGS,

marble, Musée au

Louvre, Paris.

2. Houdon, Mme

Victoire, 1777, marble,

Wallace Collection,

London.

sculptor to address himself to the comte d'Angiviller, then

director of the Bâtiments du Roi, for payment (see Provenance).

Houdon's bust of Mme Adélaïde was displayed at the Salon

g

of 1777 along with that of Mme Victoire (fig. 2) and busts of

the comte and comtesse de Provence. Of the few commentaries, those in Mémoires secrets stand out: "The two aunts also

provided him with contrasts to render, which he captured

no less well, either by expressing the elder sister's delicacy of

features or by modeling the younger's plumpness. I would have

to be an artist, Sir, to describe in detail all the skill with the chisel

he showed in working the lace, in defining the hair, in setting

it off, in elegantly styling it... in rendering all the accessories

with no less truth than the souls of his models."

This commission was very important for Houdon, who had

just been accepted as a member of the Académie royale and

was exhibiting his admission piece (cat. 7). It was remarkable

that so early in his career, after exhibiting portraits of Catherine

II of Russia and the ducal family of Saxe-Gotha in 1773 and of

ministers Turgot and Miromesnil in 1775, he was invited to

sculpt busts of members of the French royal family. His position as court portraitist and potential successor to Lemoyne was

progressing brilliantly.

Although Houdon may have known the bust of Mme

Adélaïde by Lemoyne, which the princess gave to her entourage,

the difference in spirit between the two works is striking.

Lemoyne executed the portrait of a beautiful young woman,

deliberately accentuating her acknowledged resemblance to her

father (whose features he knew well), including the protruding

eyes. Her lips are barely parted, her clothing without intricate

detail (only the rapid evocation of a jewel on her gown). He

was free in his treatment of the marble, favoring the play of lines,

with the subtle balance of the composition elegantly enveloping

the base. Houdon, in contrast, depicted the features of a mature

woman, cinched up in her court gown. A high, elaborate chignon

dominates her imperious head, departing from the voluptuous

hairstyle that graces Lemoyne's bust. There the drapery is light

and falls loosely around her body. Here it has shriveled up, constricting about her shoulders. Mme Adélaïde has grown old

and ugly in ten years. Her hard gaze is impeccably rendered by

Houdon's usual technique of carving the eyes, yet her features

are brightened by a smile that shows her teeth.

In reality, Houdon was pitiless toward his subject, not disguising the bitterness of the old maid in any way. He undoubtedly wanted to compensate for this overly precise analysis of

character by exercising his dazzling virtuosity on the gown and

the lace ruffle. Never have drill holes been more delicate, nor

chisel lines lighter; they cut through the marble as if it were

a ductile material. Houdon was well served by marble of superb

quality—exquisitely white and almost without flaws—and he

emphasized different textural effects with extreme subtlety:

the very polished drapery, the lace pocked with tiny holes,

the vast veil, the compact mass of smoothed-down hair. Whereas

Lemoyne favored the lines, Houdon accentuated the volumes.

The back of Houdon's bust, with the handsome fall of the veil,

was not hollowed out but retains the shape of the block: the

lower part spreads out slightly, and the block is irregular in

285

11
Back view of cat. 51

shape, which creates the impression that the fabric overflows

somewhat onto the base. The back, in fact, was intended to

be seen: the sculptor's invoice specifies that the bust was accompanied by a base "and revolving platform."

At the Salon of 1787 Adélaïde Labille-Guiard exhibited a

large full-length painting of the princess (now at the château

de Versailles); in preparation, she executed an excellent pastel

study of the her face. Again there is a dryness to her features,

dressed up in grand finery. Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun painted an

oval portrait of Mme Adélaïde while the two were in Rome in

1791. That image, more intimate, exudes the same sense of cruelty that seems to have been a permanent aspect of the princess'

nature once the carefree quality of her youth had vanished.

Houdon produced a masterpiece with the present bust,

despite what one might call the aggressive personality of his

subject: "It is an admirable... work of art, where the master

sculptor handled wonderfully the difficulties presented by that

unattractive physiognomy, that petty nature, in which the bloodline nonetheless shows through. He corrected and filled out

the overly small head with marvelously flowing hair and a veil

that falls back majestically. He emphasized the Bourbon nose

and the bulging eyes, like those of Louis XV, and animated the

poorly formed and bitter mouth with an expression of intense

life. He concealed under prodigiously skillfully carved lace the

too-flat chest. He draped the bony shoulders in a fabric with

heavy, supple pleats. It is at once alive and solemn, intimate,

and decorative."33

GUILHE M SCHERF

PROVENANC E

Commissioned by Mme Adélaïde in 1776, but payment was received only

in 1785, after protracted negotiations. On 22 Jan. 1785 Houdon wrote to the

abbé de Ruallem, chief advisor to Mesdames, that payment of 4,000 livres

had been owed for nine years; on 26 Jan. Ruallem informed d'Angiviller

that since the bust had been executed under the latter's orders the princess

ought not have to pay for it; d'Angiviller noted in the margin that the bust

had not been ordered by anyone in his administration (AN, O11922 A/I,

Houdon dossier; Furcy-Raynaud 1927,157-158). On 29 Jan. Houdon wrote

to one of d'Angiviller's assistants (probably Montucla) that he had done the

bust of Mme Adélaïde after completing one of Mme Victoire; the latter had

urged her sister to sit for him; and when he requested payment, Mme

Adélaïde referred him to d'Angiviller (Roberts collection, Haverford College,

PA; published in Hart and Riddle 1911, 22-23). On 10 Feb. d'Angiviller

reported this to Ruallem (AN, O1 1918 i, no. 34; Furcy-Raynaud 1927,

160-161), who replied on 15 June that the debt should not be charged to

Mesdames: "Je vous prie de vouloir bien faire finir cette affaire le plustôt

qu'il vous sera possible. Cet homme a travaillé, j'ignore de qui il en a reçu

l'ordre; mais toujours est-il certain qu'il est juste qu'il soit payé" (AN, O1

1922 A/i; Furcy-Raynaud 1927,161). On 28 June d'Angiviller finally wrote

that the king had consented to have the debt paid from his administration's

funds (AN, O1 1918 i, no. 211; Furcy-Raynaud 1906, 118). The invoice

specified: "Mémoire d'un buste en marbre fait pour le service du Roy, sous

les ordres de Monsieur le comte d'Angiviller... par le sr Houdon, sculpteur

de Sa Majesté, pendant l'année 1776... Estimé 3000 livres... .Plus une

colonne en marbre servant de piédestal audit buste, avec sa base et son

plateau tournant... 1000 livres"; d'Angiviller requested a voucher from the

king on 29 June 1785; and payment in full was received later that year (AN,

O

1

1922 A/I; Furcy-Raynaud 1927,156-157,161-162).

The bust, included on Houdon's autograph list (ca. 1784) under the

year 1778 (no. 53), was surrendered by the princess to her intendant, Pierre

Randon de Pommery, before she left France in 1791; it passed to his widow,

Marie-Charlotte de Floissac (who had it transported to château de Thil, near

Les Andelys); to their eldest son, Randon du Thil; to his son, who died child286
T H E COURT S O F EUROP E

less in 1870; to his sister, the marquise de Champchevrier, née Rochemore;

to her heirs at the château of Marcilly-sur-Maulne (Indre-et-Loire). Acquired

by the dealer Sylvain Guiraud, Paris, ca. 1906; then Georges Hoentschel;

sold by his heirs to Arthur Georges Veil-Picard before 1918; gift of the heirs

of Veil-Picard (d. 1944), in memory of their father, 26 Apr. 1947.

EXHIBITION S

Paris, Salon cat. 1777, no. 235; Paris 1908, 50, no. 127; Vingt ans d'acquisitions au Musée du Louvre, 1947-1967 [exh. cat., Orangerie des Tuileries]

(Paris, 1967-1968), no. 313,101.

REFERENCE S

Délerot and Legrelle 1857, 60, 182; André Michel mentions a letter concerning the payment of the bust in BSHAF (1907), 19; Vitry 1907^ 201;

Brière and Vitry 1908,169-170; Vitry igoSb, 2-4; Vitry igoSc, 26-27, ^1-

24; Arsène Alexandre, in La Renaissance de l'art français et des industries de luxe

(Apr. 1918), 2, ill.; Furcy-Raynaud 1927, 156-162; Giacometti 1929,1:40,

ill., 2:44-45; Marcel Aubert, "Le Buste de Mme Adélaïde, par Houdon,"

Bulletin des Musées de France, no. 7 (Aug. 1947), 20-21, ill.; Réau 1964,

1:75-76, 306-307, 2:25, no. 78, pi. 37; Arnason 1975, 39, fig. 87, pi. 31;

Louvre cat. 1998,430, ill.

Signature on cat. 51

1. Félix, comte d'Hézecques, Souvenirs d'un page de la

cour de Louis XVI (Paris, 1983), 75.

2. Campan (éd. 1988), 25, 27, 31.

3. Besenval (éd. 1987), 161-162.

4. Hézecques (éd. 1983), 73.

5. See Versailles 1999-2000, nos. 43 and 82,

respectively.

6. Versailles 1999-2000, no. 60.

7. See Guilhem Scherf, "Un portrait de Mme Adélaïde

par Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne entre au département des

sculptures du Louvre," Revue du Louvre. La Revue des

Musées de France (Oct. 2002), 13-16, no. 4. Lemoyne

also did a portrait of Mme Victoire (lost).

8. In 1763 Mme Adélaïde had wanted to be depicted

full-length (and in marble), most likely to imitate

the statue of her homonym Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie

(dauphine of France), executed by Antoine Coysevox

at the king's expense in 1710 (Louvre cat. 1998,170,

ill.). This plan went nowhere, officially because of a

lack of statuary marble in the storerooms.

9. The bust of Mme Victoire is less severe than that of

her sister, but the overeager joviality, though it may

prompt warm feelings, is less attractive than severity:

"What delicious art [Houdon] deploys in representing

the ample ripeness of that fat woman! How well he

knows how to render that empty-headedness and

smug solemnity" (Paul Vitry, "La Sculpture française

des XVIle et XVIIle siècles au musée Wallace,"

Les Arts, no. 7 [Aug. 1902], 22).

10. The marbles of the comte and comtesse de

Provence have disappeared, but a plaster of the comte

is at the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.

11. Fort 1999,187.

12. Xavier Salmon, Musée national du château de Versailles. Les Pastels (Paris, 1997), 100-102, no. 26, ill.

13. Vitry 19083,4.

287

Anne-Hilarion de Costentin,

Maréchal de Tourville (1642-1701)

1783

Terracotta

H. 52.5 cm, W. 22.0 cm, D. 27.0 cm

Musée national de céramique, Sèvres (inv. MNC 23450)

1809

Biscuit porcelain

H. 48.0 cm, W. 23.0 cm, D. 22.5 cm

Inscription on front of counterbase: TOURVILLE; on back: A.B. 13. dec 09

Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon (inv. V1329; T 7o6C)

52-53

Houdon's marble of the maréchal de Tourville was the only

official royal commission that the sculptor was awarded before

1789 (fig. i). It was part of a program initiated in 1776 by the

comte d'Angiviller, director of the Bâtiments du Roi, who had

announced to Jean-Baptiste Pierre, director of the Académie

royale and premier peintre du Roi, his intention to "hire four

sculptors from the Académie, each of whom would execute a

figure in marble for His Majesty representing some man,

famous in the nation for his virtues, his talents, or his genius."

He wished to encourage the fine arts by supporting historical

sculpture against the invasion of portraits and genre paintings

and thus to revive virtue and patriotic feelings.

The first two groups of commissions in the series of "Great

Men of France," exhibited at the Salons of 1777 and 1779, portrayed magistrates, philosophers, and men of letters. In 1779

d'Angiviller ordered statues of two military figures, "a naval hero

illustrious for his victories [Tourville] and an army hero [Nicolas

Catinat] no less illustrious for his military talents than for his

disinterestedness, his humanity, and his philosophical mind."

Gabriel de Saint-Aubin habitually passed through the Salon at

that time sketching the paintings and sculptures on display: in

his sketchbook he drew four of the statues of Great Men shown

in 1779 in the garden of the Infante, and he rapidly sketched on

the back of the sheet what the next commission might be. A

figure of Tourville, which he believed to have been sculpted by

Louis-Philippe Mouchy, showed the military hero enveloped in

a large drapery, leaning on a small boat that represented the

flagship Soleil royal and pointing with an extended hand toward

4

what would likely be the enemy flotilla. The primary elements

of the composition thus seem to have already been established.

Critics at the Salon of 1781 eagerly anticipated Houdon's

performance: "The courtyard, Sir, has become a lyceum where

our famous sculptors joust. M. Houdon, whom we were angry

not to find accepted earlier for the competition, is finally one of

the athletes, and his statue of the maréchal de Tourville is the

most striking"; it was "the only one in marble, and does not

belie the deserved reputation that excellent artist has acquired."

Houdon had furnished the block of marble and accepted the

collaboration of an assistant, Joseph-André Vincent Mazetti.

The catalogue for the Salon of 1781 described the marble of

Tourville as follows: "The marshal is represented at the moment

when he shows the war council a letter from the king, which

orders him to give the signal for battle... and to fight enemies

weak or strong if he found them. That admiral, the most skill289

+

T H E COURT S O F EUROP E

i. Houdon, Maréchal de Tourville, 1781, marble, Musée national du château

de Versailles.

ful seaman in France and perhaps in the whole world, did not

waver in executing the order he had received."

The comte d'Angiviller wanted the statues of the Great Men

to be historically accurate in their representation of their

subjects. Houdon respected these rules, providing extensive

documentation and depicting Tourville in traditional seveng

teenth-century costume. He found it more difficult to capture

the appropriate expression of character and to avoid the pitfalls

of a cold or mannered style. Those criticisms he received focused

on the iconography: he was reproached for the lack of austerity

in the costume and for his virtuosity in rendering the textures

of the fabric and in carving the lace: "Heroism is not coquetg

tish, and unfortunately, the marshal's attire is." The face was

also found to be too young, lacking strength and maturity.

Finally, the model of the admiral's flagship, a necessary support

for the statue, was found to lack inventiveness, even to be shocking. Other criticisms concerned the overly theatrical presentation: "A charlatan who shows the paper on which all the miracles produced by his balm are contained"; "M. Houdon shows

us his hero with hair blown back by the wind, as if he had

been on the deck at the height of the storm; he makes the

feathers on his hat ripple, the plumes falling onto his forehead,

and the cravat fluttering about. These tours de force in which

the artist revels show a lack of common sense."

Diderot pointedly defended the artist's choices: "The wind

that blows through his hair and clothing, the navy attributes

that serve to support the figure, indicate the element on which

he is about to fight. That figure has movement; the moment

chosen is sublime; it is not sculpture, it is painting, it is a beautiful Van Dyck... .The head is too covered, there is luxuriance in

the clothing, but the clothing is accurate and elegantly so." All

the same, in his speech to the Institut de France on 3 October

1829, Quatremère de Quincy harshly condemned the "picturesque figure of Tourville" and that "gust of wind."

Beginning in 1783 the comte d'Angiviller had asked each

sculptor to send a reduced model in terracotta of each sculpture in the series of "Great Men" to the Manufacture de Sèvres

so that biscuit porcelains could be produced for sale: "My aim

henceforth was that the artists commissioned to create these

figures should make a small model to scale, fifteen to eighteen

inches tall, to be used to execute them in porcelain at the royal

porcelain factory of France." Houdon was rushed to produce

his model for the Salon of 1783.

The terracotta at the ceramics museum in Sèvres is broadly

modeled. The first biscuit porcelains, produced before the Revolution, were delivered to Versailles or intended as diplomatic

gifts: for instance, a statuette of Tourville was exhibited in the

14

"silver plate room." The copy currently housed at Versailles

was made in 1809; it is signed by Alexandre Brachard and is

part of a set of fourteen statuettes delivered from Sèvres to the

Musée de Versailles on 28 June 1835. In a different material

and on a smaller scale than the marble, it shows a simplified

treatment of the figure: a less elaborate costume, a less violently

turned head, and a more balanced posture.

CLAUD E VANDALLE

29I

7

10
2. Pierre-Adrien Le Beau, Maréchal de Tourville, before 1789, engraving after

Hondón, BNEst.

EXHIBITION S

•f Terracotta +

Paris 1928, no. 49; Versailles 1928,86, no. 86; Paris 1984-1985,454-456,

no. 133, ill.

inédits sur les expositions du i8e siècle (Paris, 1873),

 n9» Furcy-Raynaud 1905,

80-81, 264-265 (no. 281), 292, 344; Marc Furcy-Raynaud, Inventaire

des sculptures exécutées au XVIIIe siècle pour la direction des Bâtiments du

Roi (1720-1790^ (Paris, 1911), 69-70; Furcy-Raynaud 1927, 163-164;

Giacometti 1918-1919,1:259,2:78-80; Réau 19223,367-379; Réau 19283,

341; Marthe Gagne, "Les Statues de français illustres"(Ph.D. thesis directed

by Paul Vitry, Paris, 1929), abstract in Bulletin des musées de France (Sept.

1929), 213-215; Réau 1964,1:52, 269,479-480, 2:18 n. 34, pi. 29; Francis

H. Dowley, "D'Angiviller's Grands Hommes and the Significant Moment,"

Art Bulletin 39, no. 4 (Dec. 1957), 259-277, ill.; Arnason 1976, 63-65,118

n. 158, fig. 130, pi. 67; Versailles cat. 1993, 352, no. 1647; Scherf 1993,

58-60; Versailles 2001-2002,10-15,

 2O'> West 1998,40; Fort 1999, 243,

fig. 42; Antoine Reffuville, Tourville, gentilhomme des Océans [exh. cat.,

Archives départementales de la Manche] (Saint-Lô, 2001), 97-98.

RELATE D WORK S

Marble commissioned by d'Angiviller for the series of "Great Men"; payments totaling 10,000 francs received between 7 May 1781 and 25 Jan. 1785

(see Furcy-Raynaud 1947,163-164; Réau 1964,1:51-52); H. 23 cm; inscribed

on right side of base: "Fait Par Houdon, 1781"; on medal around neck:

"R. / D. / VENISE / 1690"; on parchment in right hand: "ORDRE / DE

COMBATTRE / A / LA HOUGUE / 1692"; on parchment at foot of vessel:

"signaux perfectionnés"; on bow of vessel: "LE SOLEIL ROIAL / DE 106

CANONS"; exhibited at Salon of 1781.

Houdon's studio sale, Paris, 8 Oct. 1795; detailed plaster model: "modèle de la grande figure en marbre qui appartient à la nation. H: 25 pouces

[63.5 cm]."

Possibly Edmund Courty collection, Châtillon-sous-Bagneux; terracotta;

presented as a first conception for the marble statue at Versailles; Ducos

sale, 13 Dec. 1837, no. 50.

Prints

Engraving by Pierre-Adrien Le Beau, based on drawing by Claude-Louis

Desrais after Houdon, published before 1789, depicts Tourville half-length

in a medallion above a scene from the battle of La Hougue (source not cited)

(fig. 2); and an unsigned and undated engraving published by Duflos, Paris,

shows Tourville "after the statue sculpted by Houdon for the king," BNEst

(N2, microfilm D 272034 and 272035).

Engraving by Louis-Marie Normand (Sr.), after 1824, in Clarac 1850,

5:337, no. 2665, pl- 371-

Engraving by Ephraim Conquey, in Charles Gavard, Galeries historiques

de Versailles (Paris, 1850), no. 314.

REFERENCE S

•f Biscuit porcelain 4-

Inventaire des richesses d'art de la France, Province, Monuments civils, vol. 5,

La manufacture de Sèvres (Paris, 1891), 51; Bourgeois and Lechevallier Chevignard 1914, no. 584, pl. 42; Christian Baulez, "Notes sur quelques meubles

et objets d'art des appartements intérieurs de Louis XVI et de MarieAntoinette," Revue du Louvre 3 (1978), 360.

-î- Marble +

Salon cat. 1781, no. 251; Moufle d'Argenville, Mémoires secrets, ijSi (Paris,

I

7^3)J 37J-373; Quatremère de Quincy 1834,388-402; Versailles cat. 1837,

70, no. 475; Versailles cat. 1839,279, no. 488; Versailles cat. 1854,2:321, no.

2768; Délerot and Legrelle 1857,129-137; Jules Guiffrey, Notes et documents

Signature on cat. 33

292
T H E COURT S O F EUROP E

Back view of cat. 52 Back view of cat. 53

1. See Furcy-Raynaud 1905, 80-81. See also the essay

"Houdon, 'Above All Modern Artists'" in the present

catalogue.

2. Scherf 1993, 58-66.

3. Réau 1964,1:51.

4. Fol. loir-ioiv; see Emile Dacier, Carnets de dessins

de Saint-Aubin, carnets de la Bibliothèque royale de

Stockholm (Paris, 1955), 19, pi. 11-13.

5. Mémoires secrets, letter 3 (24 Sept. 1781); and Journal

encyclopédique (1781).

6. See the dossier of documents assembled in Réau

1964,1:51-54. The first payment of 2,000 livres was

made on 7 May 1781. Mazetti, a witness at Houdon's

wedding, was an Avignon sculptor trained in the studio of Guillaume II Coustou; he also assisted Augustin

Pajou in rendering his marble of Jacques Bénigne

Bossuet for the "Great Men" series.

7. According to the memoirs of the duc de Berwick, the

action occurred in May 1692, off He d'Ouessant. For

six weeks unfavorable winds had prevented the comte

d'Estrées from leaving the Mediterranean with ships

from Toulon; and the king, impatient to carry out his

plan, sent orders to Tourville, admiral of the flotilla,

to enter the Channel with his ships from Brest without

waiting for the comte d'Estrées. See Salon cat. 1781.

8. Houdon may have known the portrait by Hyacinthe

Rigaud. The inscriptions sought to give the maximum

information on Tourville.

9. In 1780-1782 the ministry of the navy commissioned Antoine Graincourt to produce a copy of

Rigaud's half-length portrait of Tourville, which shows

him elegantly dressed in breastplate and lace cravat

(Versailles; MV 1089, no. 2312); the portrait was

engraved by Jean-Jacques Hubert for Les Hommes

illustres de la marine française (Paris, 1780), 136.

10. Année littéraire, Salon of 1781 (Deloynes XII,

446-447, no. 270 MS).

11. Mérard de Saint-Just, Salon of 1781,35; Mémoires

secrets, letter 3.

12. Quatremère de Quincy 1834, 397.

13. Giacometti 1918-1919, 3:177: "A much smaller

reproduction of it in terracotta can be seen at the

museum in Sèvres; however, no copies of it in biscuit

porcelain dating from that time are known even today."

14. Baulez 1978, 360.

15. Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, VM>9, fol. 43:

fourteen statuettes of the Great Men were delivered for

200 francs each. The example in Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen, Dresden (inv. PE 476), was undoubtedly

the copy that Emperor Napoleon I gave the king of

Bavaria in August 1809.

293

54

Prince Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)

Dated 1789

Bronze, greenish black patina, on gilt bronze base

H. 67.3 cm (with base: 85 cm), W. 63.6 cm

Inscribed on proper right shoulder: fondu Ciselé par thomire. / d'après le modèle de Mr. / hondón. 1789.

Plaque: HEROUM ILLUSTRIS VIRTUTIBUS AT QUE TRIUMPHIS / PACIFICAS COLIT HENRICUS QUOQUE PAL¡L]ADIS

ARTES: / FŒDERE AMAT STABILI GALLOS, ET AMATUR AB ILLIS; / sic ETERNA DUAS SOCIET CONCORDIA GENTES!

Stiftung Preufèische Schlôsser und Garten Berlin-Brandenburg (inv. GK III 528 / Skulpt. Slg. 119)

Contemporary sources describe Prince Henry of Prussia as

small, thin, and of unprepossessing appearance, yet charming

and friendly: "As for the ugliness of his face, it was on first meeting absolutely repulsive. However, the expression of his two

large eyes, of which one looked to the right and the other to the

left, had a kind of sweetness to it, which one also noticed in the

sound of his voice; and when one listened to him, his words

were always of an extreme amiability." Consistent with this

unsparing characterization by the painter Elisabeth VigéeLebrun, Houdon portrayed his royal sitter with less-than-perfect features and wearing a wig typical of his time. These realistic

elements are in contrast to Henry's costume of Roman-style

armor and a military cape fastened at his right shoulder, which

characterizes him as a military hero; the center of his breastplate is dominated by the badge of the Prussian Royal Order of

the Black Eagle. His right arm is separated from the body, indicating that it is raised in action.

Prince Henry, the younger brother of King Frederick the

Great, never stood in the limelight. Destined for a military career

and serving from a young age as his brother's comrade-in-arms,

he became one of Prussia's most distinguished field commanders and military strategists. He occasionally represented the

throne in confidential diplomatic missions to Russia and France,

but despite his superior abilities, his position as a lesser prince

precluded any real participation in power or public recognition

for his services, contributing to intense friction between him

and the king. Henry retreated to his palace in Rheinsberg, about

a day's journey from Berlin, where the enlightened Francophile

established a radiant court rivaling the king's own.

In 1784, at age fifty-eight, Henry visited the country of his

dreams for the first time, spending two and a half months filled

with cultural and social activities in Paris. He returned in

1788-1789 to renew friendships with people of influence and

standing, such as the new minister of finance Jacques Necker,

the comtesse de Sabrán, and the duc de Nivernais. During the

time of the French Revolution Henry offered hospitality to a

large number of émigrés, turning his court into a sort of

French colony. The last years of his life he spent in the seclusion of Rheinsberg, surrounded by the likenesses of his French

acquaintances, whose portraits he had acquired from Houdon's

studio and installed throughout his palace.

It was probably Frédéric-Melchior Grimm who, in his role

as the princely cicerone, established contact between Henry and

Houdon. The first version of Houdon's bust of Prince Henry

295

+
(see fig. 2), exhibited in the Salon of 1785, depicts the sitter in

contemporary dress "à la française," with cravat, jabot, and an

unadorned sash across his left shoulder. This quiet, reflective

portrait received little enthusiasm from the Salon critics of 1785,

who, while granting that its expression was "remarkable for the

alertness and wit that are characteristic of a general," could find

"neither the value of the hero nor the character of the prince"

and missed "the fire and the genius of his physiognomy." The

expanded version of the bust, with full shoulders and a truncation below the chest (see fig. i), was executed in marble as a

royal commission and shown in the Salon of 1787 before it was

cast in bronze in 1789. Solemn and majestic, it idealizes Prince

Henry as a classical military hero and man of action. Its long

format and the sitter's costume are comparable to those of

Houdoris Belisarius of 1773 (Musée des Augustins, Toulouse)

and Alexander the Great of 1783 (see cat. 13, fig. 2), both displaying the same combination of Roman-style armor and cape.

The brooch, or fibula, holding Henry's cape is almost a duplicate of that on the bust of the actor Larive in the role of Brutus

(cat. 13).

The similarities between the two types of Henry's portrait,

especially in the facial features and the wig, indicate that both

derive from the same model, created during the prince's first

visit to Paris in 1784. The present bronze and at least one other

bust were doubtless commissioned in the context of the sitter's

second trip to Paris in 1788-1789, for shortly after his return

i. Houdon, Prince

Henry of Prussia,

3785, marble, present

location unknown.

2. Houdon, Prince

Henry of Prussia,

3785, plaster, Herzogin

Anna Amalia Bibliothek, Weimar.

Henry offered a copy to his nephew, the reigning king Frederick

William II, and to his brother Ferdinand. The inscription on

the plaque attached to the base reads: "One of the heroes famous

for virtues and triumphs / Henry also performs the pacifying

arts of Pallas: / in a stable alliance he loves the French and is

loved by them; / so eternal concord may unite the two nations!"

This bronze is distinguished by its superb quality, the elegance of its cold work, and the brilliance of the patinated surface. The meticulous rendering shows the skill of the man who

proudly signed on the truncation of the right shoulder: "Cast

and chased by Thomire after the model of Mr. Houdon. 1789."

Pierre-Philippe Thomire, one of the most important founders

and bronze workers of his time, is thought to have studied at the

Académie de Saint Luc in Paris under Houdon and to have

o

worked in the sculptor's studio before becoming independent.

9

Houdon kept his own foundry at the Faubourg-Saint-Honoré,

where he produced numerous smaller and a few large-scale

objects, which, though of high quality, never reached the same

level of refinement as Thomire's. For this prominent commission of a bronze bust of the prince of Prussia, Houdon chose to

collaborate again with his talented student, who had previously

executed reductions after Houdon's models.

ULRIK E D. MATHIES

296

10
T H E COURT S O F EUROP E

Back view of cat. 54

PROVENANC E

From the Prussian royal collection; one of two documented bronzes of the

same type, possibly identical with one exhibited in the Salon of 1789, no.

240, and owned by King Frederick William II; in the Stadtschloss in Berlin

in the nineteenth century (see "Corr. Frédéric le Grand," 1857,176; Seidel

1892, 67); listed as belonging to the "Collection du Nouveau Palais de Potsdam" in Paris 1928, 63; part of the collection of Potsdam-Sanssouci since

1945 (Rheinsberg 1994, 62-63).

EXHIBITION S

Possibly Paris, Salon cat. 1789, 50, no. 240: "Le Prince Henri de Prusse.

Buste en bronze de grandeur naturelle"; Paris igooc, 68, no. 36, ill. p. 16;

Berlin 1910,48, no. 240, fig. 79 (see also 2nd rev. éd., 49, no. 79); Berlin 1912,

31, no. 69; Paris 1928, 63-64, no. 61; Meisterwerke aus den Preufiischen

Schlôssern [exh. cat, Preuféische Akademie der Künste] (Berlin, 1930), 34,

no. 89; London 1932, 302, no. 591; Weltschàtze der Kunst, der Menschheit

bewahrt. Ausstellung anlajslich des 40. Jahretages des Sieges über den Hitlerfaschismus unâ der Befreiung des deutschen Volkes [exh. cat., Altes Museum]

(Berlin, 1985), 367, no. 362(1, ill.; Rheinsberg 1994, 62-64,

 no

- H> ^1- P63; Von alien Seiten scho'n. Bronzen der Renaissance und des Barock [exh. cat.,

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preutëischer Kulturbesitz, Skulpturensammlung] (Berlin, 1995), 616-617, no. 251; Rheinsberg 2002, 231, no. V.66, ill.

Extant plasters

Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, Weimar (see fig. 2); H. 51.6 cm (with

base: 64.6 cm), W. 32.4 cm; formerly with cachet de l'atelier, well-documented

provenance from Houdon's studio: acquired in Paris 26 Jan. 1785 by FrédéricMelchior Grimm for Duke Carl August of Saxe-Weimar (3 louis, or 72 livres,

or 46 Reichsthaler 2 Groschen; bills and receipts discovered in the Weimar

archives; see Mansfeld 1955); the bust was already in Weimar by Mar. 1785

and is therefore not the one exhibited in the Salon of 1785 (Bogyay 1935,

366-367; Mansfeld 1955,130-135, no. 48).

Stiftung Preutëische Schlôsser und Garten Berlin-Brandenburg, Schloss

Charlottenburg, Berlin (inv. Ks III 104); H. 53.4 cm (withbase: 66.5 cm), W.

33 cm; with cachet de l'atelier, bought from Heim Gallery, London, in 1972.

See Helmut Bôrsch-Supan, "Die Erwerbungstàtigkeit der Verwalrung der

Staatlichen Schlôsser und Garten in Berlin seit 1945," in Schlojs Charlottenburg, Berlin, Preufien. Festschrift fur Margarethe Kühn (Munich and Berlin,

1975), 93, no. 137, fig. 65; Rheinsberg 1994, 60-62, no. 13, ill. p. 61; Rheinsberg 2002, 38-39, no. 1.36, ill. p. 14.

Collection of Henri Tronchin, Bessigne (near Geneva); modern patina;

supposedly given in 1785 by Prince Henry to François Tronchin, ancestor of

the present owner; see Bovy 1923-1924, 3:591.

Documented versions

A terracotta-colored plaster of this type was delivered by Houdon to the due

de Brissac, 23 Dec. 1788, for 96 livres (BMV, F 946, D 37533, nos. 120-121).

A bust of Henry of Prussia was in the posthumous sale of the contents

of Houdon's studio, 15-17 Dec. 1828,16, no. 18, and sold with the bust of

Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Gerbier for 23 francs (see Réau 1964,1:119); it is probably the one shown in Boilly's paintings of Houdon's studio, a terracottacolored version at left of lower shelf on the back wall (cat. 66); possibly the

bust formerly in the collection of René Rozet, Amiens (Réau 1964,2:33, no.

i3oA, pi. LX; Paris 1928, 64-65, no. 62).

Type with shoulders

Only a small number of busts with full shoulders and Roman-style armor

is documented or has survived.

Marbles

The marble in the Salon of 1787, no. 253, one of Houdon's rare commissions for the French king, was ordered in 1785 through the comte

d'Angiviller, director of the Bâtiments du Roi, and delivered to his house in

REFERENCE S

"Corr. Frédéric le Grand," 1857,176; Dierks 1887, 60-61,134; Seidel 1892,

66-67, no. i; Seidel 1900,42-43,168, no. 187, ill. p. 43; Lami 1910-1911,

1:428; Giacometti 1918-1919,1:110-111,2:17,27,191-203; Giacometti 1929,

2:67-68; Mussia Eisenstadt, "La Salle française à l'exposition de l'Académie

des Beaux-Arts à Berlin," Beaux-Arts. Chronique des arts et de la curiosité 8,

no. i2 (Dec. 1930), 10; Schwark 1930,50, pi. 41.2; Maillard 1931,47; Nidausse

1947, 81-82, 120, pi. 15; Mansfeld 1955, 174-179, no. 49; Réau 1964, i:

392-394, 2:32-33, no. 1306, pi. LXI; Arnason 1975, 69, fig. 146.

RELATE D WORK S

Type without shoulders

Preceding the present bronze, a variant of the portrait—with truncated shoulders and contemporary French dress—was first exhibited in the Salon of

1785, no. 229. It is represented by the following: Signature on cat.

297

54
July 1786. The marble block was provided, and Houdon was paid 2,400

livres (Réau 1964,1:392-394). The bust remained in d'Angiviller's residence until 2i Apr. 1793, when his belongings were confiscated by the revolutionary Commission temporaire des arts following his emigration. The

manuscript inventory of seized objects lists under "sculptures," no. 4: "Un

buste du Prince Henry de Prusse, en marbre" ("Registre des réceptions des

objets d'art et antiquités trouvés chez les émigrés et condamnés...," p. 7; AN,

Fi7*-23.A). The bust was possibly sold with the rest of d'Angiviller's furnishings 7 June 1793.

This original marble, or one of the same type (see fig. i)-H. 66 cm

(with base: 83 cm), inscribed on truncation of right arm: "Houdon fecit

1785"—was exhibited in Paris 1928, 63, no. 60, but has since disappeared

(Giacometti 1929,68-70, ill.); said to have been owned by J. Baptiste Claude

Curmer (1782-1870); passed on by inheritance to M. and Mme Pinel, château

de Bardouville near Rouen; and bought at the Pinel sale, Paris, 21 Apr. 1913,

5-7, no. i, ill., by Philippe Michel; there is no record of it after 1937.

Bronzes

A second version of the present bronze, given by Henry to his brother Ferdinand in 1790, was placed in the palace garden at Schloss Bellevue on a

fluted column with garland decoration and the inscription: "Frédéric Henri

Louis, Prince de Prusse, né le 18 Janvier 1726, mort le 3 Août 1802. Il a tout

fait pour l'État." This bust was stolen before 1857 and replaced with a copy,

of which the present location is unknown. See "Corr. Frédéric le Grand,"

1857,176; Bogdan Krieger, Das Ko'nigliche Schlofe Bellevue in Berlin unâ sein

Erbauer Prinz Ferdinand von Preufien (Berlin, 1906), 115-119, with an

allegedly contemporary sketch of the original setting, and ill. of copy in situ;

Rita Hofereiter, "Franzôsische Bildwerke in der Sammlung des Prinzen

Heinrich," in Rheinsberg 2002,445-446.

A later copy of the present bronze is in Stiftung Preutëische Schlôsser

und Garten Berlin-Brandenburg, Neues Palais, Potsdam-Sanssouci (inv. GK

III 2608; Skulpt. Slg. 120); H. 66.9 cm (with base: 80 cm), W. 62.5 cm;

inscribed on proper right shoulder: "fondu Ciselé par thomire. / d'après le

modèle de Mr. / houdon. 1789"; mounted on a simple round base.

A variant bronze bust of uncertain authenticity; H. 76 cm; inscribed:

"houdon f. 1789"; portraying Henry in a civil costume with sash, badge, and

drapery, is in the Muzeum Lubuskie in Gorzów Wielkopolski (formerly

Landsberg), Poland (inv. MOG / II /1 /130). The author is grateful to Ulrike

Muller-Harang, Weimar, for making her aware of its present location. Originally in the gardens of the Tamsel estate near Küstrin, as described in 1861

by the German poet Theodor Fontane in his " Wanderungen durch die Mark

Brandenburg," it belonged to a memorial for Henry of Prussia and his

great-grandfather, Frederick William, the Great Elector. In the early twentieth century the bust was recorded inside the house, installed on a limestone

pedestal (H. 129 cm) similar to that for the bust in Bellevue; see Kurt Reissmann, Die Kunstdenkmàler des Stadt- und Landkreises Landsberg (Warthe)

(Berlin, 1937), 125,129, fig. 293. Its inscription names the donor Graf Ludwig Alexander von Wreech (1735 -1795). valet to Henry of Prussia, who had

accompanied the prince on both trips to Paris (Rheinsberg 2002,518-519,

no. VIII. 16, ill.; cf. p. 446).

An engraving dated 1785, by Charles-Etienne Gaucher after a portrait medallion by Charles Nicholas Cochin (see fig. 3; BNEst, 2002 B168041, fol. 082),

is inscribed "Dessiné par C. H. Cochin d'après le Buste modelé par J. A.

Houdon en 1784. Gravé par C. E. Gaucher en 1785"; it shows the sitter in contemporary dress with the addition of a shoulder piece of armor, which relates

to the inscription in the oval frame, "Général et soldat, héros et citoyen." On

30 Apr. 1785 Cochin, on behalf of the minister of state Bertin, presented to

the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture several copies of this engraving, which were gratefully accepted (Procès-verbaux, 9:235).

For other portraits deriving from Houdon's bust, see Rheinsberg 2002,

39-41, nos. 1.38,39,41.

3. Charles-Etienne

Gaucher, Prince Henry of

Prussia, 1785, engraving

after a portrait medallion

by Charles Nicolas Cochin,

BNEst.

1. Vigée-Lebrun 1984, 2:269-270.

2. For a comprehensive bibliography see Rheinsberg

2002. See also Chester V. Easum, Prince Henry of

Prussia. Brother of Frederick the Great (Madison, WI,

1942); Eva Ziebura, Prinz Heinrich von Preufien

(Berlin, 1999); Henning and Henning 1988, 303-311.

3. See Andrew Hamilton, Rheinsberg: Memorials of

Frederick the Great and Prince Henry of Prussia, 2 vols.

(London, 1880); Richard Krauel, "Prinz Heinrich

von Preufèen in Rheinsberg," Hohenzollem-Jahrbuch.

Forschungen und Abbildungen zur Geschichte der

Hohenzollern in Brandenburg-Preufeen 6 (1902),

12-37. On the palace itself see Rheinsberg 1985.

4. For Henry's two trips to Paris see Krauel 1901.

5. See essay "Houdon and the German Courts" in this

catalogue.

6. See Soulavie 1785, 35; and ["Exposition des tableaux

au Louvre"], Journal de Paris 266 (23 Aug. 1785), 1096

(Deloynes XIV, no. 351).

7. See Rheinsberg 2002, 231,445-446. Frederick

the Great, often named as one of the recipients, died

in 1786.

8. Niclausse 1947,12, 20; Denise Ledoux-Lebard,

Les Ebénistes parisiens du XIXe siècle (1795-1870).

Leurs œuvres et leurs marques (Paris, 1965), 531-533.

9. See Bresc-Bautier 1994,373.

10. See Réau 1964,1:480.

298

Print
Friedrich III,

Duke of Saxe-Gotha (1699-1772)

1773

Medallion, plaster painted a bronze color in gilt wood frame

Diam. 48.8 cm (frame: H. 75 cm, W. 65 cm)

Inscribed at bottom center: houdon.f.

Legend: DIVO FRIDERICO III • SAX = GOTHANO OPTIMO PRINCIPI

Schlossmuseum Gotha (inv. P 45)

55-56

* Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha (1745-1804)

Dated 1773

Medallion, plaster painted a bronze color in gilt wood frame

Diam. 48.8 cm (frame: H. 75 cm, W. 64.5 cm)

Inscribed at bottom center: houdonjt. 1773.

Legend: ERNEST DIVI FR. F. DUX SAXO = GOTHANUS PRINCEPS OPTIMUS &C

Schlossmuseum Gotha (inv. P 44)

The medallions of Friedrich III and his son Ernst II of SaxeGotha imitate the shape and style of ancient medals or coins.

With the plaster painted to look like aged bronze, they combine

elements of Greek and Roman coins that represent the king or

emperor. The sitters' heads are depicted in sharp profile and

truncated just below the neck; their hair falls in soft waves over

their foreheads and is tied with a headband, the diadema, which

in ancient Greece was reserved for some divinities and the king.

The relief of Friedrich III represents the obverse of a medal

issued in his memory (fig. i a-b) and is identical with, or a replica of, the plaster model Houdon produced as a prototype for

the engraver of the die; the medallion of Ernst II was apparently

created solely as a pendant to his father's depiction.

Houdon based both pieces on portraits of the sitters that he

had executed during his first visit to Schloss Friedenstein in the

winter of 1771. This task extended his stay in Gotha from the

anticipated two weeks to six weeks, as reported by Friedrich Wilhelm Doell, the young local artist who was to receive further

training in Houdon's studio. Doell wrote a letter to his friend

Friedrich Justin Bertuch, later known as a writer and publisher

in Weimar, on 2 December 1771: "Six weeks ago M. Houdon,

sculptor and pensionnaire of the king, came from Paris. He was

in Italy for four years and has been commissioned to build the

funerary monument to the late duchess, a model of which he

brought along. Their Serene Highnesses asked him to render

their heads in bas-relief, which he agreed to do provided I assist

him, because he was authorized to stay here for fourteen days

only; the Prince promised this, and we have been working for

six weeks, day and night. Today we finished!" Although Doell

does not reveal how many members of the ducal family Houdon

portrayed on that occasion, another source records at least one

other portrait medallion in addition to those of the dukes: that

of Ernst's wife, Charlotte Amalie.

When only a few months later, after the death of Friedrich III

in March 1772, Ernst II decided to honor his father with a dedicatory medal in the style of an ancient coin, he requested that

4

the image on its obverse be modeled after Houdon's portrait.

Under Frédéric-Melchior Grimm's direction, the original medallions were shipped from Gotha to Paris, where they arrived

by the end of the year. Houdon was charged with remodeling

Friedrich's head for its new purpose, and in doing so, he had to

adhere to the precise instructions of the duke's iconographie

advisor, Abbé Ferdinando Galiani in Naples, who was responsible for ensuring the medal's authenticity and "antique" look.

299

*


la-b. Houdon, obverse and reverse of commemorative medal for Friedrich III

of Saxe-Gotha, 1773, bronze, Schlossmuseum Gotha.

The face of Friedrich III, who was rather heavy by the end

of his life, is subtly sculpted. Modeled from life, it reflects the

distinctive characteristics of the sitter's anatomy, such as the

double chin, the bulky neck, and the oddly shaped ear. The same

realism and almost unflattering frankness can be found in the

highly individualized likenesses of some of the late Hellenistic

kings. Ernst II's handsome, regular features, in contrast, reveal

youthful energy and seem more idealized.

Both portraits are set in heavy gilt wood frames, each beautifully carved with a laurel wreath and a ribbon tied in a bow on

top, probably provided by Houdon himself. The Latin inscriptions around the circumference, certainly Galiani's inventions,

imitate the legends on imperial Roman coins in their lettering,

language, and content. The adjective divus, or "divine," in

Friedrich's medallion identifies the duke as deceased, while the

Latin dative case indicates a dedication. In ancient Rome the

laudatory cognomen princeps optimus, "the best leader," here

employed for both dukes, served to honor good emperors; it

is most frequently to be found on coins of Trajan, referring to

o

his mild nature and his courteous manner. The use of this

appellation on portraits of Friedrich III and Ernst II is unique,

since the legends on their own coins, as well as on those of

their predecessors, refer only to their title as "Duke of SaxeGotha" —GOTHAN. SAXONVM DUX —and sometimes add the

letters D.G. for dei gratia, "by the grace of God."9

The present medallions were completed before August 1773,

when Houdon exhibited the portraits of four members of

the house of Saxe-Gotha in the Paris Salon, described in the

catalogue as depicting the late duke Friedrich III; the reigning

duke Ernst II; Ernst's wife, Charlotte Amalie; and his sister

Friedericke Louise (nos. 232-235). Although the catalogue does

not define the type of portrait, Houdon's own 1784 inventory

of his works (nos. 17 and 18) records: "Buste de la duchesse de

Gotha," and "Médaillon du duc et de la duchesse de Saxe Gotha

et du duc Père." This corresponds with the physical evidence

of two extant medallions (Friedrich III and Ernst II), one documented medallion now lost (Charlotte), and one female bust

in the Schlossmuseum Gotha (fig. 2) whose identity as the

duchess is confirmed by the recently discovered, earliest known

inventory of the plaster cast collection in Gotha. The critical reaction to these Salon entries, scarce as it was, was not

enthusiastic. One reviewer wrote: "I cannot judge these busts

without knowing the people they represent; there is, however,

a mechanical quality to all of these heads. " Visitors to the Salon

of 1773 had the opportunity to compare Houdon's portrait of

Friedrich III with the medal in his honor (fig. la-b), engraved

by Houdon's friend Pierre-Simon-Benjamin Duvivier, or

Duvivier^iJs, and listed in the catalogue under "gravures":

"Médaille à la Mémoire de S. A. S. le Prince de Saxe-Gotha."

ULRIK E D. MATHIES

2. Houdon, Duchess Charlotte Amalie of Saxe-Gotha, 2773,

plaster, Schlossmuseum Gotha.

302
T H E COURT S O F EUROP E

PROVENANC E

Probably identical with the works exhibited in the Salon of 1773, these

medallions must have entered the collection of Schloss Friedenstein shortly

thereafter, although the exact date is not known. They remained in the

possession of the ducal family ("Herzogliche Familienstiftung") until 1935,

when they were transferred to the Herzogliches Museum.

EXHIBITION S

Probably Paris, Salon of 1773, 46, nos. 232 and 233: "Le Portrait de feu

Frédéric III, Duc de Saxe-Gotha £ Altenbourg"; and "Ernest-Louis, Due

regnant"; Berlin 1955, 70, ill. pp. 34-35; Duisburg 1987, 144-145, nos.

92-93, figs. 92-93; Gotha 1989 (not in cat). Signature on cat. 56

REFERENCE S

Eloge des tableaux exposé au Louvre le 26 août 1773 de l'entretien d'un lord,

avec M. l'abbé A*** (Paris, 1773), 75-76 (Deloynes X, no. 148); Dierks 1887,

24-25,137; "Correspondance de Pierre et de Marigny," NAAF2O (1904),

241-242; Lami 1910-1911, 1:414; Giacometti 1918-1919, 2:324-325;

Mansfeld 1955,85-86, nos. 14-15; Seznec 1959,113-114; Réau 1964,1:390,

2:56, nos. 268-269, pi. 39; Grimm (éd. 1972), 192-194, 213-214,

218-220,222, nos. 127-128,139,142-143,145; Arnason 1975,24-25, figs.

68-69, pl-

 :4' Galiani and d'Epinay (éd. 1992-1997), 3:83-85, 91-93,

4:131,135, 202; Schuttwolf 1995,142-143, nos. 52-53, ill.

RELATE D WORK S

Modern copies in simple wooden frames in the Forschungsbibliothek Gotha

in Schloss Friedenstein (Grower Bibliothekssaal).

1. From 25 Oct. to 3 Dec. 1771. On Houdon's involvement with Gotha see Frank, Mathies, and Poulet

20025,475-483.

2. GSA, Sign. 06/375, fols. 23r-23v: "Vor 6 Wochen

kam von Paris H [err] Houdon sculpteur und pensionnaires du Roi, welcher 4 Jahr in Italien war, und verschrieb ist worden urn das Mausolée zu machen vor

die verstorbenene Herzogin wovon er ein Model mit

brachte, die Durchlfauchte] Herrschaft bathe ihn, Ihre

Kôpfe en Bas-relief zu bussieren, welches er versprach,

wan ich ihm hülfe dan er hate nur Uhrlaub auf 14

Tage hier zu bleiben, der Prinz versprach es Ihm und

wir arbeiten schon 6 wochen Tag und Nacht. heute

sind wir fertig." The author is grateful to Petra Rau,

Frankfurt, for this reference. As an agréé, or candidate

for membership, in the Académie royale, Houdon had

to receive authorization for his trip to Gotha from the

marquis de Marigny, director of the Bâtiments du Roi,

for which he applied in Sept. 1771. See "Corr. Pierre et

de Marigny," 1904, 241-242.

3. See Houdon's letter of July 1772, related to the shipment of several crates of his sculptures to Gotha (FLB,

Chart A 712, fol. iir); reproduced in the Appendix to

the present catalogue, lines 241-244; 416-417.

4. These events and details are known from correspondence among Ernst II, Grimm, and Galiani; see the

essay "Houdon and the German Courts" in the present

catalogue.

5. See Gisela M. A. Richter, The Portraits of the Greeks

(London, 1965), 3:278, fig. 1975, for the image of

Euthydemos I, who is shown on his coinage as an

elderly man with a full face and a prominent lower lip.

6. See Appendix, lines 241-248; 415-418.

7. "To the divine Friedrich III of Saxe-Gotha, the best

leader"; and "Ernst, son of the divine Friedrich, Duke

of Saxe-Gotha, best leader, etc."

8. See "Optimo. Principi" and "Optimus," in Seth

William Stevenson, et al., A Dictionary of Roman Coins,

Republican and Imperial (London, reprint 1982), 587.

9. Wolfgang Steguweit, Geschichte der Münzstátte

Gotha vom 12. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert (Weimar, 1987),

225-239.

10. Vitry 1907^ 198.

11. "Verzeichniss der im sogenannten Antiken-Saale

befindlichen Abgüsse, Büsten pp." (undated, ThStA,

no. 63, ca. 1804-1827), under "Cap: III. An kleinen

Modellen, antik und modern," fol. 6r, 37: "Büste der

verwittweten Herzogin Charlotte, von Houdon."

12. Eloge des tableaux..., 1773,75-76.

13. Salon cat. 1773, 55, no. 284/5.

303

57

Model for the Tomb of Prince

Aleksandr Mikhailovich Golitsyn (1723-1807)

1775

Terracotta

H. 42 cm, W. 50 cm, D. 17 cm

Inscribed in ink on paper label on front: L'an 17 j[] / Le. Prince de Gall[itzin] V[ice] Chancelier] de R[ussie] <£ /

Trouva l'heure à laquelle tous les fantômes / de la vie s'évanouissent et où il ne reste / à l'homme que la vertu qui le console et /

l'amitié qui le regrette

Cachet de l'atelier at bottom right

Musée du Louvre, Paris, département des sculptures, Gift of C. D. Caroillon de Vandeul, 1905 (inv. RF 1397)

By the early 17705 when the Golitsyn family, an old princely

dynasty of Russian military leaders and statesmen, decided to

commission personal funerary monuments from a French

sculptor rather than a Russian, the practice was already well

established in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Houdon's association with the Golitsyns dates from around the same time he

was commissioned by Aleksandr Stroganov to create a portrait

bust of Catherine II (1773), generally considered the artist's first

work for a Russian patron. Houdon received commissions for

four private tombs from the Golitsyns, the first two apparently

from Prince Dmitrii Alekseevich (1734-1803), who was chargé

d'affaires in Paris in 1761, then minister plenipotentiary there

from 1763 to 1767, when he moved to The Hague to serve as

ambassador until 1782. The prince was particularly close to

Denis Diderot and Frédéric-Melchior Grimm; and in 1773, possibly representing his cousin Dmitrii Mikhailovich Golitsyn

(1721-1793), then Russian ambassador in Vienna, he appears

to have commissioned from Houdon marble tombs for Aleksei

Dmitrievich Golitsyn (1697-1767) and Mikhail Mikhailovich

Golitsyn (1685-1764), both carved in Paris and shipped to

Moscow (figs, i and 2).

Two later commissions came from another cousin, Prince

Aleksandr Mikhailovich Golitsyn (1723-1807), a former Russian ambassador to France and England, vice chancellor, and

grand chamberlain, who, like his cousin at The Hague, corresponded with Grimm between 1764 and 1775 and was highly

regarded by Diderot. Following the early death of his brother

Piotr Mikhailovich (1738-1775), who was killed in a duel, he

ordered two models for funerary monuments from Houdon in

1775 — one for his brother and the other for himself, as a sort

of memento mori, it seems. Diderot was to devise the iconographie programs.

Until the important recent discovery of an extensive correspondence involving Aleksandr Mikhailovich, Dmitrii Alekseevich, Diderot, and other parties, relatively little was known

about these later commissions —apart from one surviving

305

*
i. Houdon, Tomb of Aleksei

Dmitrievich Golitsyn, 1773-1774,

marble, Shchusev State Museum of

Architecture, Moscow.

2. Houdon, Tomb of Mikhail

Mikhailovich Golitsyn, 1773-1774,

marble, Shchusev State Museum of

Architecture, Moscow.

model, mention in the catalogue for the Salon of 1777 (with the

lost model for the tomb of Piotr Mikhailovich), a sketch in that

catalogue by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (fig. 3), and a letter from

Jean-Baptiste Suard, an acquaintance of Diderot and Grimm,

to the margrave of Bayreuth on 30 March 1775. The handwritten inscription on the front of the Paris model clearly identifies

it as being for the tomb of Aleksandr Mikhailovich.

Inspired by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle's dramatic monument for

the maréchal de Saxe, begun in 1753 (Eglise de Saint-Thomas,

Strasbourg), the present composition shows a dying man being

placed in a sarcophagus, comforted by the allegorical figures of

Virtue and Friendship. In the background at the right, in low

relief, the figures of Abundance and Envy, representing the "fantomes de la vie," according to Diderot's inscription—in other

words, good and bad fortune —are seen fleeing. Although criticized for its strong reliance on allegory, for being "more literary than sculptural and more picturesque than monumental,"

the work's handling is nonetheless subtle and delicate.

On 3 March 1775 Dmitrii Alekseevich wrote from The Hague

to Aleksandr Mikhailovich in St. Petersburg that Diderot had

said that the latter's tomb would be very beautiful, which suggests that the commission had been under discussion for some

time. He sent the inscription (nearly identical to the one on

the front of the Paris model), as an explanation for the entire

monument, and clarified that whereas the iconographie

program was by Diderot, its execution would be by Houdon.

Apparently Diderot joked that the patron would be financially

ruined but would be compensated by "a beautiful thing, pathetic

without being distressing; a great lesson, says [Diderot], for

you and for others." Not surprisingly, the ensuing correspondence focused increasingly on costs, which Dmitrii Alekseevich tried to play down as much as possible. By the end of

June 1775 Diderot sent another word of reassurance through

Ivan Ivanovich Betskoi, also explaining some delays.

Diderot's authorship, the inscription, and the iconographie

scheme were confirmed in the letter from Suard to the margrave of Bayreuth, while Diderot's sepulchral aesthetics, as

embodied in other earlier projects, were also recalled: "[Diderot]

believed that he had to make an object of it that a man could

have continuously in front of his eyes, without the imagination

being too much distressed by it, and he has sought to moderate the lugubrious and melancholic ideas necessarily attached

o

to such an image through sweet and consoling ideas." It was

this concept of being touched by the design without being

9

saddened that Aleksandr Mikhailovich particularly appreciated.

By September Aleksandr Mikhailovich wrote Diderot that

he was satisfied with the description of the tomb for Piotr

Mikailovich and that he wanted, in view of his brother's recent

death, that monument to be completed first. As for his own

tomb, "which will have to belong to a man still alive, he is not

that pressed, still having a great desire to live." Until the second half of 1777 further correspondence concentrated on the

3. Gabriel de SaintAubin, sketch of model

for the Tomb of

Prince Aleksandr

Mikhailovich Golitsyn in margin of

Salon catalogue of

1777 (no. 254)

(BNEst).

306
T H E COURT S O F EUROP E

execution of the monument for Piotr Mikhailovich. On 16 May

Diderot wrote Aleksandr Mikhailovich singing Houdon's

praises —"a man more jealous of glory than of wealth"—then

spelled out the artist's terms: Houdon asked 36,000 francs if

the figures for both tombs were to be carved in the round; he

was willing to reduce his fee to 30,000 francs if they were to be

placed against walls. Diderot insisted that Pigalle or EtienneMaurice Falconet, older and more established, would ask twice

these amounts, and he speculated that this would be true of

Houdon in ten years, but now he was young and running "less

after money than reputation." Finally, Diderot noted that the

price for the two monuments was the same as that paid in 1774

by Dmitrii Mikhailovich for the earlier Golitsyn commissions.

By August 1777 the cost of the tombs had become a major

consideration for Aleksandr Mikhailovich. On the advice of a

certain Fedor Ivanovich Creidemann from St. Petersburg, he

asked Fedot Shubin to carve the tomb for Piotr Mikhailovich

according to Houdon's model. In January 1778 Diderot complained to Aleksandr Mikhailovich that Houdon had still not

received any word regarding the project; if he wanted to withdraw his commission, he should simply inform the artist and

14

thus free him to accept work from other clients. Six weeks

later Aleksandr Mikhailovich replied deceptively that Houdon's

models had been delayed in transit and that he needed more

time to consider them. In the interim he sent the sculptor 600

livres for the second model, later increased to 1,200 for the

two. And he expressed regret that neither his nor Diderot's

recommendations to Betskoi had resulted in a major commission for Houdon, or a position as professor of sculpture at the

18

Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. This was a particularly interesting moment, as Falconet had just left the city after

the failed first cast of his equestrian monument and after twelve

years of dominating the art scene, thus leaving vacant one of

the city's most important artistic positions. Indeed, Houdon

never visited the new Russian capital, despite renewed efforts

. -, . 19

to entice mm.

Aside from the present model for the tomb of Aleksandr

Mikhailovich, which Houdon gave to Diderot, and the tomb of

Piotr Mikhailovich executed after a lost model (with considerable artistic license) by Shubin and lakov Ivanovich Zemelhak

(fig. 4), nothing appears to have survived from these commissions. In September 1781—after the completion of his brother's

monument—seemingly displeased with Shubin's and Zemelhak's work, Aleksandr Mikhailovich wrote to his cousin Dmitrii

Mikhailovich, then in Paris, asking him to find a capable French

sculptor to execute his own tomb after Houdon's model. Fearing that Houdon and Diderot might have been offended during

the previous negotiations, however, he asked his cousin explicitly not to approach either one. In the end, Diderot's and

Houdon's congenial composition remained unrealized.

CHRISTOPH FRAN K

4. Fedot Ivanovich

Shubin and lakov

Ivanovich Zemelhak,

based on Houdon's

model of the Tomb of

Piotr Mikhailovich

Golitsyn, 1775-3780,

marble, Shchusev

State Museum of

Architecture, Moscow.

PROVENANC E

Mentioned in Houdon's list of his own works (ca. 1784): "En 1777... No. 48.

Un modele de monument pour le prince de Galizin, vice chancelier de

Russie. No. 49. Un modelle [sic] de monument pour le prince de Galizin,

mort d'un duelle" (Vitry 1907!}, 200-201); probably given by Houdon to

Diderot sometime later; collection of Marie Angélique de Vandeul, Diderot's

daughter; collection of Charles Henri (called Albert) Caroillon de Vandeul

(1837-1911). Donated by the latter to the Louvre in 1905.

EXHIBITION S

Paris, Salon cat. 1777, no. 254: "Deux Esquisses de Tombeaux, pour deux

Princes Gallitzin. Ces monuments doivent être exécutées en marbre, de

grandeur naturelle"; Paris 1928, 91-92, no. 94; Paris 1958, 106-107,

no. 128; Kunst und Geist Frankreichs im 18. Jahrhundert [exh. cat., Obères

Belvedere] (Vienna, 1966), 172-173, no. 126, fig. 69; London 1972,

255-256, no. 395, pi. 50; Paris 1986, 258-259, no. 397.

REFERENCE S

Dierks 1887, 124; Jean Guiffrey, "Notizie di Francia." L'Arte 9 (1906),

456-459, 458; André Michel, "Les Récentes Acquisitions du département

307
de la sculpture (moyen âge, renaissance et temps modernes) au Musée du

Louvre," GBA 35, 3rd ser., 48th year (1906), 412-413; Réau 1914, 43; Réau

1917,134-139; Giacometti 1918-1919,1:67,2:24-25,3:63; Louvre cat. 1922,

2:63, no. 1372; Réau 19243, 193-195; Brinckmann 1925, 134-135, pi. 75;

Giacometti 1929,2:208; Louis Réau, "Les Maquettes des sculpteurs français

duXVIlle siècle," BSHAF(i^6), 23; "Jean-Antoine Houdon," Connaissance

des Arts, no. 7 (15 Sept. 1952), 44, ill. p. 45; Réau 1964,1:96, 257-258, 2:18,

no. 32, pi. XXVII; Arnason 1975,42, 62, fig. 96; Hecht 1994,32-34; Dulac

1997; Louvre cat. 1998, 2:426; Karp 1998, 32-116.

RELATE D WORK S

Shchusev State Museum of Architecture, Moscow (inv. P. Villa 23 and 24);

Tomb of Mikhail Mikhailovich Golitsyn and Tomb ofAleksei Dmitrievich

Golitsyn by Houdon, 1773-1774, marble. See Réau 1964, 2:18, pt. 3, nos.

29-30, pi. XXVI; and Salon cat. 1773, 45-46, nos. 229-230; Bachaumont

1780,13:147-148; and Con. littéraire, 10:379.

Shchusev State Museum of Architecture, Moscow (inv. P. Villa 25);

Tomb of Prince Piotr Mikhailovich Golitsyn, by Fedot Ivanovich Shubin and

Iakov Ivanovich Zemelhak after a lost model by Houdon, 1775 -1780,

marble (originally in the Small Cathedral of the Virgin of the Don at the

Donskoi Monastery in Moscow, then in the church of the Archangel Michael

at the same monastery from 1929 until recently, together with the other two

tombs by Houdon). See J. I. Arenkova and G. I. Mekhova, Donskoi monastyr

(Moscow, 1970), pis. 49-50; and Karp 1998, 39 n. i, for further bibliography. In late eighteenth century Moscow this tomb was considered a sight

worth seeing; according to Portia de Piles 1796, 3:325: "Monastère de

Donski Beaucoup de famille nobles y ont leur sépulture: le prince

Galitzin, mort en 1775, y a un beau mausolée en marbre: plusieurs autres

sont avec des bas-reliefs, dont quelques-uns assez bien traités."

Drawing

Sketch by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin in his copy of the Salon cat. of 1777 (see

Dacier 1909-1921, 4:49, no. 254; and 59-60, 60 n. i).

1. See Bernard Black, "Vassé's Tombs for Two Russian

Princesses: The Troubetskoy—Galitzin Monuments:

New Discoveries and an Old Mystery,"GBA (Oct.

1996); Paris and New York 1997-1998,136-140, no.

53; and Sergei Androssov, "Monuments funéraires exécutés par Pajou et Vassé pour la Russie," in Augustin

Pajou et ses contemporains, éd. Guilhem Scherf (Paris,

1999), 465-480.

2. On 23 Mar. 1770 Diderot wrote to his sister: "The

Prince [Dmitrii Alekseevich] of Golitsyn ordered my

bust to be made"; see Diderot (ed. 1955-1970),

10:40-41, no. 603. Although the prince is mentioned,

it is not clear to which bust Diderot refers or whether

it was really commissioned from Houdon; there is no

supporting proof.

3. See Karp 1998. For the letter from Suard see Diderot

(ed. 1955-1970), 14:135-136. See also Salon cat. 1777,

49, no. 254.

4. Réau 1964,1:258, pt. 2.

5. Dmitrii Alekseevich Golitsyn to Aleksandr

Mikhailovich Golitsyn (hereafter DAG and AMG)

(RGADA, Fonds 1263, opis i, no. 1124, fol. 37; see Karp

1998, 54, no. 4).

6. AMG to DAG, 16 [27] Mar. 1775; and DAG to AMG,

2i Apr. 1775 (RGADA, no. 4261, fol. 4, and no. 1125,

fol. 63; see Karp 1998, 55-56, nos. 5-6). On the dual

system of dating in eighteenth-century Russia see

note i in the essay "A Man More Jealous of Glory than

of Wealth" in the present catalogue.

7. Betskoi to AMG (RGADA, no. 590, fol. 24v-25v;

see Karp 1998, 57, no. 7).

8. Paris 1986, 258-259, no. 397. On Diderot's involvement in earlier sepulchral monuments see Frank,

Mathies, and Poulet 20023; and Frank, Mathies, and

Poulet 2oo2b.

9. AMG to Diderot, 30 Dec. 1775 [10 Jan. 1776]

(RGADA, no. 4458, fol. 1-2; see Karp 1998, 59, no. 9).

10. AMG to Diderot (RGADA, no. 4847, fol. iv-2v;

see Karp 1998, 67-68, no. 12).

11. Diderot to AMG (RGADA, no. 12433, fol. 6r-7v;

see Karp 1998,77-79, no. 20).

12. Until further research is carried out, it is difficult

to determine the exact roles of DAG and Dmitrii

Mikhailovich Golitsyn (hereafter DMG). Réau 1964,

1:257-259, pt. 2, incorrectly, held the former solely

responsible for all four tombs; involvement of the

latter has only recently come to light with the discovery

of the letter from Diderot (see Karp 1998,79).

13. Karp 1998, 84, no. 21.

14. Diderot to AMG (RGADA, no. 12433, fol. 4~5v;

see Karp 1998, 90-91, no. 26).

15. AMG to Diderot (RGADA, no. 12433, fol. io-ii;

see Karp 1998, 95-97, no. 2).

16. DAG to AMG, io Mar. 1779; Houdon's receipt for

600 livres, 16 July 1778; and DAG to AMG, 6 July 1779

(RGADA, no. 1125, fols. IO2V, 104,3nd no; see Ksrp

1998, iio-in, nos. 39,40, and42).

17. AMG to Diderot, 12 [23] Mar. 1778 (RGADA, no.

12433, fol. io-n; see Karp 1998, 96-97).

18. This last hypothesis is advanced in Ksrp 1998,

92 n. i. It is supported by Nicolas-François Gillet's

departure from St. Petersburg in Sept. 1777.

19. See the essay "A Man More Jealous of Glory than

of Wealth" in the present catalogue.

20. AMG to DMG, Sept. 1781 (RGADA, no. 4136, fol.

2v; see Karp 1998,114, no. 43).

308
Charles-François Du Périer,

called Dumouriez (1739-1823)

1793

Terracotta on circular terracotta base

H. 63 cm (with base: 77 cm), W. 45 cm, D. 26 cm

Inscribed on left side of base: HO

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Angers (inv. MBA 760)

Houdon did the bust of Dumouriez at a moment of glory in

the general's life. Born in Cambrai, an army volunteer at eighteen, discharged as unfit in 1763 with the cross of Saint-Louis,

Dumouriez carried out various more-or-less secret missions

abroad during his youth, for which he was eventually imprisoned in the Bastille. Freed with the rise of Louis XVI in 1774,

he resumed his army career, was named a colonel, and in 1778

commanded the naval base at Cherbourg. He established

ties with the revolutionaries and was a familiar figure at the

Club des Jacobins. Rising quickly to power during the Revolution, he was given the military command stretching from

Nantes to Bordeaux in 1791. He became a lieutenant general

in February 1792, then minister of foreign affairs on 15 March.

Allied with the pro war policy of the Girondins, briefly serving as minister of war, he became commander in chief of

the armies of Nord and Ardennes and won the victory of

Valmy (20 September 1792), alongside the duc de Chartres,

eldest son of Philippe Egalité. He then won the victory of

Jemmapes (6 November 1792), again with Louis-Philippe,

which allowed him to occupy the southern Low Countries.

On his return to Paris on 29 December 1792, he was welcomed

as a conquering hero by the Girondins.

It was at that time that Houdon made a life mask of him

in preparation to sculpt his portrait. On 2 February 1793

Dumouriez returned to the army of Nord, conquered the United

Provinces, and settled in Brussels. But misfortune, both political and military, followed glory (he opposed the Convention

nationale and refused to explain himself in Paris; and he lost

the battle of Neerwinden and had to evacuate the Netherlands).

He turned over to the Austrians the minister of war, Pierre de

Riel, comte de Beurnonville, and four représentatives on a mission to arrest him, but he did not manage to rally troops behind

him when he wanted to march on Paris. He was therefore forced

to surrender to the Austrians on 5 April 1793, accompanied by

the duc de Chartres, his aide-de-camp. Driven out everywhere

he went, in 1800 he obtained asylum in England, where he

would die forgotten in 1823.

According to Louis-Philippe, who knew Dumouriez intimately, Houdon executed the life mask after the victory of

Jemmapes. The mask was a better likeness than the marble

bust at the Palais Royal and a greater inspiration for the painters

charged with reconstituting the glorious victories of the Revolution. In a letter to his secretary and librarian Vatout, dated

ii November 1822, Louis-Philippe explains: "The thing that best

309

*

58

LAT E W O RK S

captures what [Dumouriez] was like when he commanded our

armies, is the bust in my home... .It was in Houdon's studio at

the Bibliothèque du Roi that I discovered [the mask]. That studio was a gold mine. There M. Barrière could find the busts of

many of the people whose memoirs he is publishing. Houdon,

who is still alive, rambles incoherently and can no longer distinguish one from another, but Mme Houdon knows them all."

Dumouriez did not have the most commanding physical

appearance. He had a "little body, well set and nervous; a plain,

almost ugly face... small, but sharp and bold eyes, a large

mouth... sometimes fine and disdainful. The sound of his

voice was hollow, but with a clear and firm tone; his manners

were curt without being crude." Mme Roland, whose husband was a minister at the same time as Dumouriez, described

him as a man "who has a nimble mind, shifty eyes, and of whom

one ought to be more wary than of anyone else in the world":

I found him a very witty rogue, a bold cavalier who had

to make fun of everything apart from his own interests

and glory... .Diligent and brave, a good general, a skillful courtier, a good writer, expressing himself with ease,

capable of great undertakings; all he lacked was more

character for his wit, or a cooler head to pursue the plans

he had devised. Agreeable with his friends, and prepared

to deceive them all; gallant with the women, but unable

to inspire anything in those who might be seduced by

tenderness, he was made for the ministerial intrigues of

a corrupt court. His brilliant qualities and his interest in

glory persuaded some that he could be usefully employed

in the armies of the Republic; and perhaps he might

have toed the line if the Convention had behaved itself,

since he is too clever not to act like an honorable man

when his reputation and interests advise him to do so

Dumouriez is active, vigilant, witty, and brave, made for

war and intrigue. A skillful officer, he was, even in the

judgment of his jealous colleagues, the only one capable of properly leading a large army; a deft courtier, he

was better suited, by virtue of his character and his

immorality, to the old court than to the new regime4.

Houdon's bust admirably captures the character of this ambitious and two-faced general, "this dangerous schemer": tight

lips, oblique but piercing gaze, a face that communicates a cruel

firmness. The military uniform, with its two large lapels starchily

turned back, hardly softens the authoritarian impression made

i. Jean-Sébastien Rouillard,

Général Dumouriez,

1834, oil on canvas, château

de Versailles.

by the portrait. The painter Jean-Sébastien Rouillard was directly

inspired by it for his three-quarter-length portrait of the general, done in 1834 for the château de Versailles (fig. i).

Houdon's bust of the plebeian Dumouriez stands in contrast to those he did of the elegant aristocrats, the marquis de

Lafayette (cat. 45) and Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte de Guibert,

whose grace, in the first case, and wit, in the second, the sculptor rendered with benevolence. In Houdon's gallery of portraits,

Dumouriez, wearing a strict military uniform, could be the

brother of John Paul Jones (cat. 44), whose virile face is selfassured, with a look of tenacious determination.

Houdon was meticulous in preparing to sculpt a portrait,

taking his subjects' measurements with a pair of calipers and

even making life or death masks. David d'Angers, though he

admired Houdon and possessed several of his works—including the bust of Dumouriez—did not like this emphasis on the

reproduction of reality: "Houdon did his busts the same size

as the model, using a mold taken from life. That is a mistake.

Nature molded never renders the man. The physiognomy of

an illustrious figure must be modeled in full freedom in the

o

artist's mind." This remark criticizes the intent, but Houdon

never thought the mask taken from a living or dead man, or

rigorous measurements, could take the preeminent place of the

sculptor's work of plastic transcription. His Dumouriez is not a

pure anatomical reproduction. Houdon's genius lay in making

use of reality in order to shape it, to cultivate it with sensitivity

and intelligence. If Dumouriez takes on new life in this

portrait bust, he does so through the artist's magic and not

the anatomist's science.

GUILHE M SCHERF

3

11
Back view of cat. 5$

PROVENANC E

Probably the model for the marble bust commissioned by Philippe Egalité,

made from the life mask done in the winter of 1792-1793. Gift to the city

of Angers by David d'Angers, as set out in a letter of 5 Dec. 1836: "J'ai été assez

heureux pour faire l'acquisition d'une terre cuite exécutée par le célèbre

Houdon: c'est pour ainsi dire un manuscrit, la terre étant l'oeuvre de l'artiste

seul et sa première pensée. Elle représente le général Dumouriez J'aurai

l'honneur de vous l'envoyer pour votre musée." See Angers 1994-1995,76

n. 2, which mentions letters from the sculptor between 1834 and 1839

attesting to his fondness for this bust.

EXHIBITION S

Paris 1878, no. 475; Versailles 1937, no. 279; London 1972, no. 394, pi. 55;

Louis-Philippe. L'Homme et k Roi 1773-1850 [exh. cat., Archives nationales and

Hôtel de Rohan] (Paris, 1974-1975), no. 125, ill.; Autour de David d'Angers.

Sculptures du XVIIIe siècle et du début du XIXe siècle dans les collections des

musées d'Angers, Houdon entries by Patrick Le Nouëne [exh. cat., Musée des

Beaux-Arts] (Angers, 1994-1995), no. 19 ill.

REFERENCE S

Mercier, Notice des tableaux du muséum d'Angers... (Angers, 1838), no. 55;

Jouin 1870, 234, no. 742; Jouin 1881, 269, no. 760; Gonse 1904, 47-48,

ill.; Réau 1924^ 15-17; Giacometti 1929, 2:40-42, ill.; Jacques Levron, "A

propos d'un anniversaire. Les Œuvres de Houdon à Angers," Les Cahiers de

Pincé et des musées de la ville d'Angers, n.s., no. 4 (Jan.-June 1941), 78, ill.;

Morant 1950,12, pi. 7; Réau 1964,1:89,441-442,2:48-49, no. 221, pi. 121;

Arnason 1975, 91, fig. 187.

RELATE D WORK S

Marble probably commissioned by Philippe Egalité in 1792 and executed

with the help of an apprentice, who wrote in a notebook on 22 Mar. 1793,

"comancé le bust dumourie," and on n July, "reçu de madame Houdon... 150

[livres] pour le bust de Dumourié" (BMV, MS G 179); see H. Léonardon,

"Un aide-sculpteur de Houdon et de François Masson," Mémoires de la Société

des sciences morales, des lettres, et des arts de Seine-et-Oise 18 (Versailles, 1894),

154. Still housed at the Palais Royal, Paris, in 1822 (letter from Louis-Philippe

to his secretary Vatout, n Nov. 1822; see text above). Badly damaged with a

bust of Voltaire during a palace fire, Feb. 1848: "entièrement perdus, la

restauration en est impossible" (AMN, S 12,2 May 1848); possibly restored,

however, before being sold after Louis-Philippe's death: sale, rue des

Jeûneurs, Paris, 28 Apr. 1851,37, no. 331, lists "Le général Dumouriez. Buste

en marbre" without the artist's name (the previous item is a bust of Voltaire,

identified as being by Houdon).

Tinted plaster retouched with a tool; inscribed on truncation of right

arm: "houdon"; possibly cast from the marble, as there are slight variations

compared with the terracotta. See Giacometti 1929, 2:41-42; reproduced

in Réau 1924^ 16, as belonging to M. Bacri, a dealer.

Plaster cast from the Angers terracotta; made by Jacquet in May 1835

for the historical galleries at the château de Versailles (Versailles cat. 1993,

131, no. 533, ill.).

Engraving by Quenedy, "d'après Houdon," showing Dumouriez in

profile, opposite General Baptiste, BNEst (N2, microfilm D 131612).

Late engraving by Dien reproducing Houdon's bust, BNEst (N2,

microfilm D 131600).

1. See the paintings for the 1792 room at the château

de Versailles (in situ) in which Dumouriez is

omnipresent. Louis-Philippe wanted Horace Vernet

to use the mask to capture Dumouriez' features in

his paintings of the battles of Valmy and Jemmapes

commissioned for the Palais Royal (National Gallery,

London).

2. Quoted in Réau 1964,1:441-442. Houdon's

posthumous sale of 1828 mentions, under no. 73:

"Un grand nombre de masques de personnages

célèbres, la plupart moulés de leur vivant, tels que

ceux de M. Moitte, statuaire, M. Arnaud, de l'Académie

française, etc." The mask of Dumouriez is not included.

Barrière edited the memoirs of Dumouriez, among

others (Mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France pendant le

i8e siècle, vols. 11-12).

3. Pierre Louis Roederer, Mémoires sur la Révolution,

le Consulat et l'Empire (Paris, 1942), 86.

4. Mme Roland (éd. 1986), 65, 67, and 161.

5. Bombelles (éd. 1993), 3:322,7 Apr. 1792.

6. Constans 1995, 2:803,

 no

- 4535- iH7. See the essay "Houdon, 'Above All Modern Artists,'"

in the present catalogue.

8. Jouin 1878, 49. The assistant who helped Houdon

take the life mask of Robespierre (unknown date) was

also employed by David d'Angers. See Réau 1964,

1:88-89.

3

I2
Mme Adrien-Cyprien Duquesnoy,

née Elisabeth-Antoinette Jadelot

Circa 1801-1803

White marble with black and gray flecks on white marble base

H. 57 cm (with base: 68.6 cm), W. 46.2 cm

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Roscoe and Margaret Oakes Collection (inv. 54.9)

59-6o

* Adrien-Cyprien Duquesnoy (1759-1808)

Circa 1801-1803

White marble on separate white marble base

H. 65 cm (with base: 78 cm), W 49 cm, D. 20 cm

Inscribed on center back: houdon

Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon (inv. MV 4965)

Adrien-Cyprien Duquesnoy, a lawyer and publicist from Lorraine, belonged to the group of cultured, idealistic, moderate

local leaders who emerged all over France in the early phase

of the Revolution. Interested in the practical problems of

agriculture and commerce, he was an enthusiastic member of

the Third Estate in the Estates General and the Constituent

Assembly, where he sided with the likes of Mirabeau. Duquesnoy was elected mayor of Nancy in 1792 but was prosecuted as

a royalist under the Terror and barely escaped the guillotine.

He resurfaced on the political scene in Paris under the Consulate (1799-1804) as director of the bureau of statistics and

advisor to Napoleon's brother Lucien Bonaparte, the new minister of the interior. When in November 1802 he was named

mayor of Paris' loth arrondissement (where Houdon lived) and

in March 1803 he became a member of the General Council of

Almshouses, a brilliant career seemed to lie ahead of him.

He fell into disgrace, however, after the marriage of Lucien

Bonaparte and Alexandrine Jouberton (née Jacob de Bleschamp)

in his district on 26 October 1803, a union of which Napoleon

fiercely disapproved. Although supposedly stripped at once of

all public positions, Duquesnoy was awarded membership in

the Legion of Honor in June 1804; and he must have retained

some political influence and duties, for he officiated at the marriage of Houdon's daughter Sabine to Henry Jean Pineu-Duval

on 30 September 1805. He later retreated to Rouen, where he

had established his own spinning mill. In 1808 he committed

suicide by drowning himself in the Seine, an act attributed to

his severe financial difficulties. Duquesnoy kept a journal

recording his efforts in the Constituent Assembly, was the

author of works on charitable organizations and on the history

and rights of the poor, and translated texts from German and

English. Virtually nothing is known about his wife, ElisabethAntoinette Jadelot, called Mirabelle, a lawyer's daughter from

Nancy with whom he had one son.

The half-length busts of M. and Mme Duquesnoy share the

same elaborate format and were doubtless conceived as companion pieces. The couple's heads are turned toward one

another, while their draperies are drawn in opposite directions.

Under his togalike wrap, M. Duquesnoy wears the typical costume of the French Consulate. His cravat is wrapped around

his neck several times up to the chin and is knotted in front,

and his double-breasted coat with standing turnover collar is

buttoned up. A receding hairline frames his high; furrowed

forehead and bald cranium. His slightly bowed head and

313

+*


Back view of cat. 59

Back view of cat. 60

sorrowful face, dominated by a long nose, piercing eyes, and

thin lips, seem to convey tension and emotional instability. The

bust is unusual in that, possibly owing to the shape of the

marble block, it is very thin from front to back but has a deep

truncation. It has also been overcleaned and suffers from the

consequential loss of detail and finish.

The portrait of Mme Duquesnoy, on the other hand, stands

out for its pristine condition and luminous surface. Following

the neoclassical fashion, the sitter's hair is artistically arranged

"à la grecque," with a protruding chignon held in place by braids,

and loose curls around her face and neck. This lavishness

contrasts with Mme Duquesnoy's plain face, double chin,

plump build, and simple attire. Her thin muslin top is almost

completely covered by an ample shawl that is gracefully wrapped

around her shoulders and corresponds to her husband's

drapery. The bust is beautifully carved and is characteristic, in

all its neoclassical refinement, of Houdon's gift for rendering

natural textures such as the hair and skin. It shares these

qualities with the slightly later portrait of Dorothea von RoddeSchlôzer (cat. 61), who, her intellectual accomplishments

notwithstanding, was a middle-class housewife and mother like

Mme Duquesnoy. Houdon depicts both sitters as respectable

women of standing, emphasizing assets such as abundant hair,

healthy skin, and even features without altering their unpretentious and down-to-earth appearance.

Houdon's portraits of the Duquesnoys were executed at the

height of Adrien's power and wealth, after 1800 and before his

fall from grace. Through his work in the ministry of the interior,

he was involved with the administration of the arts and would

certainly have been familiar with Houdon's reputation. During

these years his friend and superior Lucien Bonaparte ordered

a posthumous bust of his first wife, Christine Boyer, from

Houdon, who may also have done his first portrait of Napoleon

around the same time. In April 1801 Duquesnoy had acquired

a distinguished property in Paris' i2th arrondissement, the

château de Monceaux, in which he welcomed other intellectuals and men of letters. Either its large entrance hall or its

spacious salon on the ground floor would have provided the

appropriate setting for displaying the owner's marble busts.

ULRIK E D. MATHIES

316
LAT E WO R KS

PROVENANC E

4- M. Duquesnoy 4-

Bequeathed to the Musée de Versailles by M. Marin in 1866; on long-term

loan to the Louvre in 1900; transferred to the Musée historique lorrain in

Nancy, 1966.

•i- Mme Duquesnoy 4-

Supposedly from the sitter's family (collections of her brother M. Jadelot;

Mme Alfonse de Faultrière; Mme Aimée Lascoux; and Mme Riberon);

[Camoin] sale, Paris, 14 Nov. 1949, no. 95, pi. II (500,000 francs); [not in

Galerie Charpentier sale, Paris, 23 May 1950, as stated in Réau 1964,1:127];

acquired from French and Co., New York, 5 May 1954, with funds provided

by Roscoe and Margaret Oakes.

EXHIBITION S

4- M. Duquesnoy 4-

Paris 19003,46, ill.; Paris i9Oob, 230, no. 1684 (mistakenly as "buste terre

cuite"); Paris 1928, 35, no. 18, ill. facing p. 34; La Révolution française dans

l'histoire, dans la littérature, dans l'art [exh. cat., Musée Carnavalet] (Paris,

1939), 162, no. 1150

4- Mme Duquesnoy 4-

Paris 1939,163, no. 1151; Worcester 1964,116-119, ®-

REFERENCE S

4- M. Duquesnoy 4-

Lami 1910-1911, 1:432; Giacometti 1918-1919, 2:148-149; Giacometti

1929, 2:42-43; Réau 1964, 1:442-443, 2:49, no. 222, pi. CXX; Arnason

1975, 98,119 n. 240, fig. 191, pi. I28b; Versailles cat. 1993,133, no. 547.

4- Mme Duquesnoy 4-

Réau 1964,1:443,

 2:49»no

-

 223> pi- CXXll; Arnason 1975, 97-98,118-119

n. 238, fig. 190, pi. i28a.

RELATE D WORK S

4- M. Duquesnoy 4-

Terracotta

Posthumous sale of thé contents of Houdon's studio, 15-17 Dec. 1828, no

number (6 francs; see Réau 1964,1:119), probably identical with the bust

depicted in Boilly's paintings of the sculptor's studio (cat. 66) on the lower

shelf on the back wall, between Diana and La Frileuse.

Modern plasters

Musée national du château de Versailles (inv. MV 6674); H. 66 cm (with

base: 79 cm), W. 53 cm, D. 29 cm; made after the marble by the workshop

of the Musées nationaux, Paris, probably around 1900; entered into the

collection in 1942 (Versailles cat. 1993,133, no. 548).

Palais du Trocadéro, Paris, in 1910. See Enlart and Roussel 1910, 221,

no. G 147.

4- Mme Duquesnoy 4-

A terracotta-colored bust is shown in Boilly's 1804 painting of Houdon in

His Studio, Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris (cat. 66, fig. i), behind the legs

of the Seated Voltaire.

Signature on cat. 60

1. On Duquesnoy see most recently Stuart Woolf, "Les

Bases sociales du Consulat. Un mémoire d'Adrien

Duquesnoy," Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporain

31 (Oct.-Dec. 1984), 597-618, and references therein;

Dictionnaire de biographie française 12 (Paris, 1970),

cols. 631-632; and Robert de Crèvecoeur, éd., Journal

d'Adrien Duquesnoy, 2 vols. (Paris, 1894).

2. BMV, F 945 (4), no. 44.

3. Most older dictionaries make no mention of Duquesnoy's suicide; see Biographie universelle, ancienne et

moderne (Paris, 1811-1862), 12:334-335. But a contemporary source unkindly suspected that "he spread the

news of his death in order to facilitate his flight to

Rome"; see Aulard 1923, 3:495.

4. Houdon's bust cannot be compared to other portraits of the sitter, as Duquesnoy is not among the

engraved likenesses of members of the National

Assembly (BNEst, Na4ia-45). See Henri Bouchot,

Le Cabinet des estampes de la Bibliothèque Nationale de

Paris, vol. 2 (Paris, n.d.).

5. Réau 1964,1:454, 456-457, 2:47-48, 51, nos. 214

and 242, pi. CXVII.

6. This property disappeared in the nineteenth century

and is not related to the famous parc de Monceau.

See Des Ternes aux Batignolles. Promenade historique

dans k XVIle arrondissement [exh. cat., Mairie du XVIle

et Musée Carnavalet] (Paris, 1986), 40, 44, no. 45.

317

6i

Dorothea von Rodde-Schlôzer (1770-1825)

Circa 1803-1806

White marble on gray marble base

H. 54.3 cm (with base: 69.8 cm), W. 48.2 cm

Inscribed on truncation of proper right arm: houdon.f.

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preufèischer Kulturbesitz, Skulpturensammlung (inv. M 230)

Contemporary sources describe Dorothea von Rodde-Schlôzer

as an extraordinary individual, with "a noble, masculine character, noticeable in her beautiful profile as well as in her movements and the way she talks and acts." Famous in her day,

Dorothea was the first woman to receive the degree of Doctor

of Philosophy from a German university. She was raised as a

pedagogical experiment by her "enlightened" father, August

Ludwig Schlôzer, a distinguished professor of history and politics in Gôttingen, prolific writer-publisher, and educationalist,

who was determined to disprove the theories of an opponent

using the example of his firstborn child. In 1787, when only

seventeen, Dorothea took the masters examination at the University of Gôttingen, which included comprehensive tests in

mathematics, mineralogy, history, Latin, and architecture, and

was awarded a Ph.D. — an honor for her father as much as for

herself. Her achievement was published all over Europe and

even in the United States, where the Columbian Magazine dedicated a three-page article to the "celebrated learned lady, in the

Electorate of Hanover, who was thought worthy of the highest

academical honours."

After a financially advantageous marriage to the older merchant and senator Mattheus Rodde, Dorothea presided over a

residence in the independent city of Lübeck that became a

center of intellectual and social life, attracting visitors from all

over Germany and France. In 1794 she entered into a relationship with the French writer Charles Villers and established an

unconventional, semipublic ménage à trois. Her life took a tragic

turn when her husband's business declared bankruptcy in 1810

and he grew prematurely senile, then Villers and two of her

children died. Frail from disease herself, Dorothea traveled to

southern France to save the life of her only surviving daughter

and died in Avignon at the age of only fifty-five.

On two earlier trips to Paris, from May through September

1801 and from fall 1803 to June 1805, Dorothea visited the usual

tourist attractions and salons, met with important people, and

was celebrated for her accomplishments. On her second trip

she was even introduced to the Empress Josephine, who was

delighted with her vivacity and cheerfulness. In cultural matters the "Domherr" Meyer from Hamburg was her guide

through historical sites, museums, and the studios of famous

artists such as Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Baptiste Isabey, and

Anicet-Charles-Gabriel Lemonnier. It must have been in this

way that she met Houdon, who was supposedly so impressed

by her appearance that he asked her to sit for him. The plaster

319

+
i. Houdon, Dorothea von Rodde-Schlôzer, 1801-1802, plaster, Niedersachsische Staats- una Universitatsbibliothek Gôttingen.

2. Fragment of plaster bust by Houdon of Dorothea von Rodde-Schlôzer,

before 1806, Niedersàchsische Staats-und Universitatsbibliothek, Gôttingen.

bust of "Mme. Rodde" was exhibited in the Salon of 1802 (no.

432), followed by the marble in 1806 (no. 607).

The present marble bust shows a woman in her early

thirties who is not conventionally beautiful. Her features,

however, are even and well formed, and she has a calm, engaging expression. Her hair, arranged in the fashion of the time,

is bound in a bandeau, with two curls falling onto her forehead

and the rest drawn back into long ringlets. She wears a scarf

around her shoulders that covers most of her low-cut dress. The

subtlety of the surface and the detail of characterization place

this marble among the finest of Houdon's late works. Especially

the delicately rendered eyes framed by somewhat heavy lids,

the softness of the skin, and the texture of the beautifully dressed

hair are evidence of the sculptor's enduring abilities.

A variant of this bust represents Dorothea with a scarf

wrapped around her head like a turban, while her face and torso

are basically unchanged (fig. i). Although similar in format,

the entire appearance and attitude are very different: Dorothea

looks rougher and less well groomed, the neckline of her dress

is more closed, and instead of the complicated, fashionable

Empire hairstyle she has a kerchief tied over her forehead,

suggesting the working-class style worn during the height of

the Revolution and still popular in the early iSoos. If it is

true that Houdon did Dorothea's portrait on his own initiative in 1801, it is conceivable that he first created his personal

vision of her. Without an official commission he would have

been free to emphasize certain traits: her strong character,

her intellectuality, her qualities as scholar and liberal thinker—

all expressed in the portrait with turban, exhibited in the Salon

of 1802. When a more formal portrait was ordered, Houdon

could easily have adapted the earlier bust, giving it a more

sophisticated and fashionable look. The modifications in dress

320
LAT E WORK S

and hairstyle would not have required additional sittings, and

this practice was consistent with Houdon's habit of deriving

several variants from the same basic model.

The present marble is almost certainly identical with the bust

shown in the Salon of 1806, as no other marble has survived or

has been documented. The Salon review in Le Pausanias français

confirms that the exhibited bust was of the same type as the

Berlin marble, alluding to the sitter's hairstyle, which would

not have been visible under the scarf of the earlier variant. This

review, while criticizing some minor faults, notes that the face

has been sculpted with care and with a "soft and agreeable

chisel."

ULRIK E D. MATHIES

Back view of cat. 61

PROVENANC E

From the family of Dorothea von Rodde-Schlôzer (through her daughter

Dorothea, to granddaughter Auguste von Lasperg, to great-grandson Constantin von Geyso, and to his wife, Elisabeth von Geyso); offered, but not

sold, for 50,000 Reichs-Mark through Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-AuctionsHaus, Berlin, 5-6 Mar. 1929,66, no. 451, pis. 1-2 (ill. with a separate square

marble base); sold by Elisabeth von Geyso to Dr. Jacob Hirsch in 1938

(40,000 Reichs-Mark); brought to the U.S. where it stayed during World

War II; supposedly offered for sale in 1954 (Mansfeld 1955, 244 n. 197);

acquired at Jacob Hirsch sale, Adolph Hess AG and William H. Schab,

Lucerne, 7 Dec. 1957,46, no. 146, pi. 67 by the Kaiser-Friedrich-MuseumsVerein (30,000 Swiss francs).

EXHIBITION S

Paris, Salon cat. 1806, in, no. 607: "Mme Rodde—Buste en marbre"; French

and English Art Treasures of the XVI11 Century [exh. cat., Parke-Bernet Galleries] (New York, 1942), 33, no. 140; Paris 1958,107-108, no. 129, pi. XXXV;

London 1972, 250-251, no. 387; Bilder vom Menschen in der Kunst des

Abendlandes [exh. cat, Nationalgalerie] (Berlin, 1980), 189-190, no. 47, ill.

REFERENCE S

Lami 1910-1911,1:433; L°uis Réau, "Un buste inédit de Houdon," BeauxArts 8 (1931), 25, ill.; Verres, "Kleine Nachrichten," Pantheon (Mar. 1929),

X-XI; Lieselotte Ilschner, "Bildnisse und Büsten Dorothea Rodde-Schlôzer,"

Gôttinger Jahrbuch (1957), 56-57; Peter Metz, "Das Marmorbildnis der

Dorothea von Rodde-Schlôzer von Jean-Antoine Houdon," Berliner Museen,

n.s. 8 (July 1958), 2-14, figs. 5-8; Réau 1964,1:464, 494; 2:53, no. 2506,

pi. CXXXIV; Peter Metz, Bildwerke der christlichen Epochen von der Spâtantike

bis zum Klassizismus. Aus den Bestanden der Skulpturenabteilung der Staatlichen

Museen, Stiftung Preujsischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin-Dahlem (Munich, 1966),

150, no. 925, pi. 129; Peter Bloch and A. von Schoenewerk, Kaiser-FriedrichMuseums-Verein Berlin. Erwerbungen 1^97-1972 (Berlin, 1972), no. 230; Arnason 1975,99,119 n. 244, fig. 192, pi. 129; Martha Küssner, Dorothea Schlôzer.

Ein Gôttinger Gedenken (Gôttingen, 1976), 86-87;

 Peter

 Bloch, Bildwerke

ij&o-iyw, aus den Bestanden der Skulpturengakrie und der Nationalgalerie,

Die Bildwerke der Skulpturengalerie 3 (Berlin, 1990), 12-14, no. 8, ill.

Signature on cat. 61

RELATE D WORK S

Plasters of model with headband

Fragment of a plaster bust in the Niedersáchsische Staats- und Universitatsbibliothek Gôttingen (inv. Schlôzerstiftung Gegenstànde DCa) (see fig.

2); H. 30.4 cm; the undamaged bust was signed "houdon f ' (Metz 1958, 8

n. 24) and given to the university by Charles Villers in 1810 (Liste Reufi,

NStUB, Bibl. Archiv B i4b, Büsten, p. 6); displayed in the so-called "SchlózerFenster," an installation juxtaposing Houdon's portrait with Alexander Trippel's of the sitter at eleven years old (recorded in photograph by Schmalhaus;

see Küssner 1976, fig. 22); destroyed except for the head and neck in an air

32I
raid in 1944. See W. Falckenheiner, "Einiges iiber die Büsten und Bildnisse

der Dorothea von Schlozer," Gôttinger Blatter fur Geschichte und Heimatkunde

1-4 (1919); and Karl Arndt, Katalogder Bildnisse im Besitz der Georg-AugustUniversitàt Gôttingen (Gôttingen, 1994), no. 196,111-112, ill.

Plasters of variant with "turban"

Niedersàchsische Staats- und Universitàtsbibliothek Gôttingen (fig. i); H.

57 cm (with base: 69.7 cm), W. 48 cm; signed at truncation of proper right

arm "houdon. f." and thickly painted a shiny off-white.

Present location unknown, sold in de Frey sale, Paris, 12-14 June :933>

55, no. 214, pi. XX, as: "Plâtre original, sans doute celui du Salon de Paris

1801 -1802"; supposedly from the Schlozer family collection, signed on the

right side, H. 65 cm; bought by M. Couvert for 7,500 francs (Réau 1964,

no. 25oA).

Modern reproductions of type with headband

One of two Galvano plastics imitating bronze, executed ca. 1900, in the

Sankt Annen-Museum, Lübeck (inv. 1948/151); one of three plasters made

in 1937 after the Berlin marble in Niedersàchsische Staats- und Universitàtsbibliothek Gôttingen (inv. Schlôzerstiftung Gegenstànde DCa); in

the same location, a modern marble copy, given in May 1937 by Maria von

Schlozer, née Rigal, from Dresden-Blasewitz.

i. Translated from Johann Georg Rist, Lebenserinnerungen, éd. Gustav Poel (Gotha, 1880), 2:62-63.

 Most

 °f

the early bibliography on Dorothea is based on the

idealizing biography of her great-nephew, Leopold von

Schlozer: Dorothea von Schlozer, der Philosophie Doctor.

Ein Frauenleben um die Jahrhundertwende 1770-1825

(Stuttgart, 1923). From the 19505 Dorothea was

adopted as a role model for the emancipated woman:

see Ida Hakemeyer, Three Early Internationalists of

Goettingen University Town (Michigan, 1955), 19-24;

Maria Dehn, "Doktor Dorothea," in Isabell. Das Buch

fur die. berufstátige Frau (Munich, 1957), 227; and

Renate Feyl, "Dorothea Schlozer 1770-1825," in Der

lautlose Aufbruch. Frauen in der Wissenschaji (Berlin,

1981), 70-80. Others approached the subject from the

point of view of local history: Kussner 1976; Lieselotte

J. Eberhard, Von der berühmten, gelehrten, schônen und

trefflichen Dorothea Schlozer, Doctor der Philosophie,

verehelichte von Rodde in Lübeck: eine Sammlung von

Bildern und historischen Texten, Kleine Hefte zur Stadtgeschichte 12 (Lübeck, 1995). The first critical account

of Dorothea's life is by Barbel Kern and Horst Kern,

Madame Doctorin Schlozer. Ein Frauenleben in den

Wiederspruchen der Aufklarung (Munich, 1990), with

full bibliography.

2. The Universal Asylum and Columbian Magazine

(Sept. 1790), 156-158.

3. Staats- und Gelehrte Zeitung des Hamburgischen

unpartheyischen Correspondenten 185 (20 Nov. 1804), i.

4. See Friedrich J. L. Meyer, Briefe aus der Hansestadt

und dem Inneren Frankreichs (Tubingen, 1802).

5. Schlozer 1923, 215.

6. There are minor differences in the contour of

the truncation and the execution of the face.

See Metz 1958, io-ii; Kussner 1976, 82-86, fig. 23;

Arndt 1994, no. 195, n.

7. Chaussard 1806,478-479.

322
62

* Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France (1769-1821)

Dated 1806

Terracotta

H. 52.5 cm, W. 26 cm, D. 20.5 cm

Inscribed on truncation at right side: Sa Majesté / l'Empereur et Roy /fait d'après nature / St Cloud Aoust 1806 / houdonf.

Cachet de l'atelier on back of right shoulder

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (inv. ÇA 1026)

The narrative of revolutionary and imperial France as it unfolds

on the walls of the historical galleries in the south wing at Versailles glorifies the seemingly irresistible rise to power of the

"little corporal." Paintings are displayed of the Italian campaign,

during which Napoleon Bonaparte, leading a destitute, malnourished, rebellious army, sparked the enthusiasm of his soldiers, galvanized their energy with his speeches, commanded the

admiration of his adversaries, and stood up to generals older

than he. "He frightened me," said General Charles-Pierre

Augereau, "and I cannot understand the crushing power he had

over me the first time I saw him." On his return from Egypt,

even before landing on French soil on 9 October 1799, Bonaparte seemed the leader for whom everyone had been waiting.

The constitution of year vin (1799-1800) established a true

monarchical regime for him. Within four years his ten-year term

of office was replaced by a consulate for life, then, with a new

outbreak of war and the fear of royalist plots, by a hereditary

empire. On 2 December 1805, the anniversary of his coronation

at Notre Dame in Paris, he won an indisputable victory in Austerlitz, near Vienna, and expanded the borders of the Great Empire

beyond the natural borders of France. At this point Napoleon

was at the height of his power: "For the pope, I am Charlemagne,

because, like Charlemagne, I have joined the crown of France

with the crown of the Lombards, and my empire borders on

the Orient."

Houdon received few official commissions during the

Consulate and Empire, but a painting by Louis-Leopold Boilly of

the sculptor in his studio (unknown location; formerly in the

Denain collection) shows him seated at his work table modeling

a bust of Consul Bonaparte. Several busts of Consul Bonaparte

attributed to Houdon are in public and private collections, but

none bears a signature.3

The creation of the present terracotta bust was associated

with the commission of a colossal bronze statue to surmount a

column at Boulogne-sur-Mer (see Related Works). On 15 August

1806 the emperor and empress were staying at Saint-Cloud,

and their presence drew a crowd. Houdon won the unusual

favor of having the emperor pose for him, as indicated in the

inscription: "executed from life at Saint-Cloud, August 1806."

This herm-shaped bust, in which the shoulders, chest, and arms

have been truncated at right angles, was displayed at the Salon

of 1806 alongside a bust of the empress.

On the night of 24 September 1806 the emperor left SaintCloud, taking the road to Germany "at a moment when war

3

2

3

LAT E WORK S

seemed imminent." The Journal de Paris of 25 September wrote:

"Among the busts of the emperor that attracted the public's

attention this year at the Salon of painting and sculpture, amateurs singled out one executed from life by M. Houdon; in

addition to the merits of its execution in conformity with the

rules of art, this bust has the merit of being a striking likeness."

La Gazette de l'amateur d'art went a step further: "The figure

of the emperor especially radiates dignity.... it is the calm of

power." La Revue philosophique, littéraire et politique added: "It

is nature, it is life, it is flesh with its different planes, its reliefs,

its softness." The bust remained in the sculptor's possession

until his death and was sold along with the contents of his

studio in December 1828: "Carved herm-shaped bust of

Napoleon Bonaparte with crown, modeled in Saint-Cloud in

1806. This bust, for which the emperor posed many times, is

rightly considered, among all the portraits of Napoleon, the

one that renders his physiognomy with the greatest truth."

For this portrait "à l'antique" Houdon chose frontality; the

face was made to look younger, with the features extremely

simplified and the gaze intense; the soft locks of the shortcropped hair are held in place by a ribbon, its ends falling onto

the chest. As Emeric David, champion of neoclassicism, wrote

upon leaving the Salon in 1824: "So you wish to beautify modern heroes? Seek sustenance in the beautiful forms of antiquity.

To uplift human nature, study the gods." The aged Houdon,

whose works Dominique-Vivant Denon considered "somewhat

o

marred by the style of the last century," had undoubtedly

produced one of the masterpieces of classicism in 1806, reconciling in his portrait realism and the antique, psychological

truth and idealism. The likeness to the model was achieved

through the details: through the care Houdon showed in suggesting the bone structure beneath the flesh, setting off the

locks of hair, indicating "the veins that rise fleetingly to the

g

skin's surface" on the forehead, and rendering with fine

striations the texture of the skin. In 1933 André Suarès wrote,

in a polemical and insolent work: "Napoleon was totally lacking in taste. One sees it in his portraits; the least truthful ones

were those he liked the best... .He never accepted the marvelous

bust Houdon made of him after lena, when Napoleon was about

to turn forty. Houdon went so far in the analysis of character as

to bestow grace on Napoleon's excitable nature, on the almost

feminine weakness of his will—though certainly despotic and

virile whenever it felt threatened. He concealed it under the

veil of a charming gravity, so well that, in this bust, Napoleon

seems to be a Pallas crowned by laurel. The artist brought out

Back view of cat. 62

Side view of cat. 62

325
of the shadows what the man most concealed from himself,

and even what he did not know." For official iconography,

the portraits by Lorenzo Bartolini, François-Joseph Bosio,

Antonio Canova, and Antoine-Denis Chaudet (see figs, i and 2)

were preferred to Houdon's beautiful bust. These formal

images, which have a timeless frigidity, were widely diffused

throughout the Empire and no doubt better incarnated the

principle of grandeur and authority on which the imperial

i ii 1 2

system depended.

CLAUD E VANDALLE

PROVENANC E

In Houdon's collection until his death; sold for 41 francs at the posthumous

sale of the contents of his studio, 15-17 Dec. 1828 (no. 43): "buste taillé en

hermès et diadème de Napoléon Bonaparte, modelé à Saint-Cloud en 1806.

Ce buste, pour lequel l'artiste obtint beaucoup de séances, passe avec

raison pour celui de tous les portraits de Napoléon où sa physionomie est

rendue avec le plus de vérité"; collection of Théophile Foisset; bequeathed

to the museum in Dijon, 1873.

i. Lorenzo Bartolini, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, ca. 1806,

marble, Musée national du château de Versailles.

E X H IBITION S

Paris, Salon cat. 1806, no. 601; Paris i9oob, no. 1683; London 1932, no.

1320; Huit siècles de sculpture française. Chejs d'oeuvres des musées de France [exh.

cat., Musée du Louvre] (Paris, 1964), no. 93; Der Wiener Kongress [exh. cat.,

Hofburg, Schauraume, Kaiserappartements] (Vienna, 1965), no. 75; Napoléon

[exh. cat., Grand Palais] (Paris, 1969), no. 166; London 1972, no. 388; De

Houdon à Maillol. La Sculpture française au XIXe siècle [exh. cat., Grand Palais]

(Paris, 1986), no. 295; Dijon and Orléans 1992, no. 30.

REFERENCE S

Chaussard 1806,477; Délerot and Legrelle 1857,198-199; Catalogue historique et descriptif du Musée de Dijon (Dijon, 1883), no. 1026; Gonse 1904,

158; Giacometti 1918-1919,1:259, 2:78-80; Réau 1924^ 77; Quarré 1960,

46, no. 249, pi. 33; Réau 1964,1:89-91,180,453-455, 2:51-52, no. 242A,

pi. 132; Marie-Louise Biver, "La Colonne napoléone et le camp de Boulognesur-Mer," Revue de l'Institut Napoléon 95 (Apr. 1965), 76-83; Firmiani 1971,

18, fig. 7; Arnason 1976,108, fig. 201, pi. 137; Pierre Georgel, Catalogue du

musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon (Dijon, 1985), 222, no. 208, ill.; West 1998,126,

fig. 168; Boyries 1998, 97-98; Hubert and Ledoux-Lebard 1999,112-117,

figs. 84-85; Dijon 2000, 304, fig. 5.

RELATE D WORK S

Colossal bronze statue of Napoleon I. The acclamation Napoleon received

from his soldiers on 16 Aug. 1804, at the second distribution of crosses of

the Legion of Honor at Boulogne-sur-Mer, prompted the maréchal Nicolas

Soult and the army of the English Channel to vote to erect a "Napoleon column" in honor of its leader, the new French emperor. Soult commissioned

Houdon to sculpt a standing statue of Napoleon crowned with laurel leaves

2. François-Joseph Bosio, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, 1810,

marble, Musée national du château de Versailles.

326
LAT E WORK S

and wearing the imperial ornaments, standing on a shield supported by

three eagles with their wings spread. The work was completed in 1813.

According to Charles-Jean Lafolie, Mémoires historiques (Paris, 1819): "the

standing statue of Napoleon for the column of Boulogne and the bas-reliefs

are the best castings done recently in Paris." The five-meter tall colossus was

never erected, and a column one-third the height was completed only in

1821. In the meantime, the bronze in Houdon's statue had been melted

down so that François-Frédéric Lemot could restore the statue of Henri IV

at the Pont-Neuf.

A few modern plaster casts were made by the studios of the Musées

nationaux and tinted to resemble terracotta. One was exhibited in Versailles

1928, perhaps the same one that belonged to the Dijon museum and was

placed in the Musée Marmottan, Paris, before 1939. It was inventoried in

2001 during the closure of the museum storehouses (inv. Sup oo-8-i);

another was offered to the city of Versailles by the city of Dijon and placed

in the Musée Lambinet (inv. 1845).

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux; marble copy by an anonymous artist.

Signature on cat. 62

1. Frédéric Masson, Napoléon et sa famille (Paris, 1903),

3:187, quoting a letter from Napoleon to Cardinal

Joseph Fesch.

2. Painting reproduced in a lithograph by Bataille, one

copy of which is housed at the Musée Marmottan and

another at the Musée Lambinet in Versailles.

3. Hubert and Ledoux-Lebard 1999, 55-62.

4. At the invitation of the residents of Saint-Cloud, and

after visiting the château and its grounds in spring

1803, Bonaparte provided the labor and furnishings

necessary to establish himself there. Saint-Cloud was

one of the emperor's favorite residences during the

Empire, and baptisms and major family events took

place in its living room.

5. Fouché, report of 16 Aug. 1806, cited in Ernest

d'Hauterive, La Police secrète du Premier Empire (Paris,

1913), 2:463 (no. 1445), and in Aulard 1914, 2:700.

6. La Revue philosophique, littéraire et politique (21 Dec.

1806), no. 36 (Deloynes XXXVIII, no. 1040).

7. T. B. Emeric David, Sur les progrès de la sculpture

française, first published in 1824; reprinted in part 2 of

his Histoire de la sculpture française (Paris, 1853),

 I9I

-

8. Letter from Vivant Denon to Napoleon, 10 Apr. 1805,

on the sculptors chosen to execute portraits of dignitaries of the time (Vivant Denon [ed. 1999], 2:1277).

9. Giacometti 1918-1919,1:317-319.

10. André Suarès, Vues sur Napoléon (Paris, 1933), 19.

11. See Hubert and Ledoux-Lebard 1999,121-125,

particularly on the role played by Elisa Bacciochi,

grand duchess of Tuscany and sister of Napoleon,

in the quarrying of Carrara marble and the marketing

of these busts and statues.

12. The fourth amendment of the imperial catechism,

Catéchisme à l'usage de toutes les églises de l'Empire

français (Tours, 1806) recommended "love, respect,

obedience, and fidelity... because God, who creates

empires and allocates them according to his will by

lavishing our emperor with gifts, whether in peace

or in war, established him as our sovereign, made

him the agent of his power and his image on earth.

To honor and serve our emperor is therefore to honor

and serve God himself."

327

Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France (1769-1821)

1808

Marble

H. 72.5 cm (with base: 85.5 cm), W. 53 cm, D. 29 cm

Inscribed on truncation of right arm: houdonf.

Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon (inv. MV1518; MR 2186)

Houdon persuaded Dominique-Vivant Denon, director of the

Musée Napoléon, to have Napoleon and Josephine grant him a

few posing sessions when they were staying at Saint-Cloud

in August 1806. He then executed the bust in terracotta that

bears the inscription "executed from life" (cat. 62). On 17 August

he informed Pierre, comte Daru, chief administrator of the

emperor's household: "I submitted my work to the emperor yesterday. He did me the great kindness of chatting with me about

the difficulties that sculpture, lacking the charm of color, presented for resemblance; I said that marble, by virtue of its transparency and its pleasant appearance, removed part of those

difficulties, and I expressed my wish to execute the busts of Their

Majesties in that material.... From what the emperor told me, I

may consider myself authorized to execute the busts." Daru wrote

a note in the margin of the letter: "I saw M. Houdon and asked

him for an estimate of that expense." In reply to the decision

made in his favor, Houdon wrote on 27 August: "I shall comply

with what you see fit to prescribe for me, being only too happy

to fix in marble the features that posterity will be envious to know

and which Their Majesties have deigned to judge that I rendered

faithfully/' Nevertheless, it was not the bust in the form of a herm

that was rendered in marble but rather a portrait of Napoleon I

in military uniform. Although that work was displayed at the

Salon of 1808 (no. 703), no official reproductions of it were made.

On 22 November Vivant Denon sent Daru "two invoices for

payments to be made to M. Houdon for the execution of the

marble busts of Their Majesties the emperor and empress, which

he has completed and delivered to the museum. These payments

amount to 3,000 francs each, totaling 6,000 francs."

The bust of the emperor at Versailles is not dated, but it was

listed in the royal collections in 1824, and an illustration of it

appeared in the Clarac album in 1853. Houdon yielded to

Napoleon's wish to be depicted in uniform. It is the only sculpted

portrait in which the subject was dressed in his favorite costume, as colonel in the National Guard, and it gave Houdon

the opportunity to indulge his taste for exactitude in the details.

Napoleon is shown with his head held high by a cravat, the cross

of the Legion of Honor hanging from a ribbon attached to his

buttonhole, and the Grande Croix affixed to his uniform.

Houdon worked the marble as if it were day, leaving obvious tool

marks on the surface: a firm ridge marks the outline of the lips

and the line of the half-open mouth; the nostrils are well defined;

the large, modeled planes of the sculpture are not polished. As

in the bust of Josephine and other works done toward the end

329

63

+
i. Antonio Canova,

Napoleon Bonaparte,

Emperor of France,

ca. 1806, marble,

former collection of

Prince Napoleon,

Musée national du

château de Reuil

Malmaison.

letter to Daru on 3 March 1806 Napoleon had already given the

list of subjects he wished to see treated by artists and depicted

in paintings, with precise indications regarding the dimensions,

the deadlines to be observed, and the money set aside in the

budget. Hence the emperor clearly conceived of art shown at

the Salon as an instrument of imperial policy. On 18 October it

was reported: "The Salon exhibition of works of painting, sculpture, architecture, and engraving by living artists has just opened

this morning at the Musée Napoléon, on the anniversary of the

battle of lena... .There was advance praise for the large number

of products exhibited, for the choice of subjects, and for the

merit of their execution, guaranteed by the names of the

artists All hopes have been realized, or rather, the current

exhibition greatly surpasses them." The emperor was at SaintCloud on 20 October and visited the Salon on the 22 October:

"His Majesty, having then entered the sculpture room, gave

particularly close attention to the various objects exhibited, and

said that there was reason to hope that, by the next exhibition,

the talent of the sculptors would have achieved the same high

level that the paintings had already reached. He then awarded

the decoration of the Legion of Honor to M. Cartellier." Public

interest in the plastic arts shifted to the exhibition in Paris of

"several works by the famous Canova" (fig. i) and to the arrival

of the Borghese antiquities.

CLAUDE VANDALL E

2. Gilles Lambert Godecharle, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France,

1821, stone, Musées royaux de Bruxelles.

PROVENANC E

Musée du Louvre, Paris, in storage in 1816; then at the Tuileries and

Fontainebleau, 1824; Musée de Versailles, ca. 1832-1834 (AMN, 83: inventory of statues and busts transferred from Fontainebleau); at the opening of

the Musée de Louis-Philippe, this bust and that of Josephine were paired in

the "Napoleon vestibule" on the ground floor of the south wing.

EXHIBITION S

Paris, Salon cat. 1808,41, no. 37; Chicago 1962-1963, no. 134; Paris 1999,

no. 430.

of Houdon's career, the truncation of the arms and torso above

the base is finished with parallel striations.

The Salon of 1808, where Houdon exhibited only two busts,

was particularly important in the history of the Empire Salons:

834 works were included, with 400 artists represented. In a

REFERENCE S

Clarac 1853, 6:235,no- 3579» pi-

 II27' Versailles cat. 1837,70, no. 475; Délerot

and Legrelle 1857,198-199; Versailles cat. 1854,1:144, no. 1516; Giacometti

1918-1919,1:259,2:78-80; Réau 1924^ 77; Vaudoyer 1928, 602, ill.; Réau

1964,1:89-91,180, 453-455, 2:51-52, no. 2426, pi. 132; Arnason 1976,

logn. 252, fig. 200; Versailles cat. 1993, 284, no. 1306; Boyries 1998,98, fig.

59; Hubert and Ledoux-Lebard 1999,116-117, figs. 86-87; Firmiani 1971,

no. 19,18, figs. 1-4, 6.

330
LAT E WO R KS

Back view of cat. 63

RELATE D WORK S

Plasters

Cívico Museo di Storia ed Arte, Trieste, since 1874; Napoleon I in military

uniform; signed "houdon" and wrongly identified at one time as a bust of

Consul Bonaparte; mentioned in first museum catalogue in 1898 (13, no.

122); catalogue of 1925 gives provenance as Villa Murat in Trieste.

Camoin collection; formerly owned by Colonel Bolnot; displayed at Paris

1928 (59, no. 54); at the Invalides in 1949; and at the Musée des arts décoratif, Paris, in 1954. Napoleon seems younger in this bust, which is closer

to the 1806 terracotta.

Casts were made in the studios of the Musées nationaux: beginning

in 1864, the cast of a bust of Napoleon I by Houdon appeared in the sales

catalogue under no. L 896 (Rionnet 1996, 267, no. 1129). Several copies

were listed in public collections: at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (inv.

4907), at the Palais du Luxembourg (inv. 91-01781), at the small Musée

Noisot in Fixin, and at the Musée du Caillou in Waterloo.

Reductions

Gilt bronze, inspired by Houdon's bust and part of a series of Napoleonic

portraits; executed ca. 1810 by the goldsmith J. B. Biennais; H. 12 cm. An

example is in the Musée des arts décoratifs, Bordeaux. See Guy LedouxLebard, "La Série des petits bustes en bronze des napoléonides par l'orfèvre

Biennais," BSHAF (1990), 130-142.

Reductions cast in iron seem to have been sold commercially (in the

second half of the nineteenth century?). An example is in the collection of

the Musée de Bourges.

Stone copy

Musée royal des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (inv. 3507); bust by Gilles Lambert

Godecharle inspired by this portrait by Houdon (fig. 2).

Signature on cat. 63

1. For these letters see AN, O2 202 (226-227).

2. Dominique-Vivant Denon, Notes et documents, ed.

Réunion des musées nationaux (Paris, 1999), 1:533,

no. 1546.

3. Clarac 1853, 6:235, no. 3579, pi. 1127 (in 1853 thé

bust was at Versailles).

4. That image, painted by Jacques-Louis David

and Jean-Baptiste Isabey, established the traditional

iconography for Napoleon; for example, see G. Montorgeuil and Onfroy de Breville, called Job, illustrator

of Le Grand Napoléon des petits enfants (Paris, 1921).

5. Con. Napoléon, 1862,12:151, no. 9915.

6. Le Moniteur, quoted in Aulard 1923, 3:761.

7. "On 13 November, the artists who were presented

to the emperor [Houdon was not among them] when

His Majesty distributed the Croix d'Honneur to a

few of them, resolved to immortalize their gratitude

with a painting that would represent that touching

ceremony." See Aulard 1923, 3:782.

331

•"• Josephine, Empress of France (1763-1814)

Dated 1808

Marble

H. 72.5 cm (with base: 85.5 cm), W. 53 cm, D. 29 cm

Inscribed on truncation of right arm: houdonf. 1808

Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon (inv. MV 1521; MR 2187)

Marie-Joseph-Rose Tascher de la Pagerie was born on 23 July

1763 in Les Trois-Ilets, Martinique. Summoned to France in

1779, she married Alexandre de Beauharnais on 13 December;

a son, Eugène, and a daughter, Hortense, were born of that

union. De Beauharnais, a deputy in the Constituent Assembly,

then general in the revolutionary army in 1792, was arrested

on his property in the region of Blois in March 1794, transferred

to Paris, and guillotined on 23 July (5 Thermidor). His wife was

arrested, freed on 5 August, and became part of Mme Tallien's

circle of friends, where she met an as-yet-unknown general,

Napoleon Bonaparte. They were married on 9 March 1796 and,

to please her new husband, Marie-Joseph-Rose took the name

"Josephine." Crowned empress and queen beside Napoleon

on 2 December 1804, she kept that title after their divorce on

15 December 1809.1

At the Salon of 1806, where Houdon exhibited the terracotta bust of Napoleon I (see cat. 62), he also displayed one of

the empress. The Salon catalogue does not indicate the medium,

but the Journal de Paris reported on 25 September: "The same

art lovers [who took notice of the bust of Napoleon] seem divided

in their opinion of the two busts of Her Majesty the empress,

one in marble by M. Chignart [sic], an artist from Lyons, the

other in plaster, modeled by Houdon. The first, more advantageously located, more rich in ornament and, in addition,

executed with outstanding talent, made a more striking

impression on everyone. But the other, which was perhaps

justifiably criticized for its excessive simplicity, benefits from

attentive consideration and leaves nothing to be desired in terms

of likeness. Many artists prefer that one." J.-B. Chaussard, a

critic at the Salon, was more reserved in his analysis: "I thought

I could recognize, in the one case, the epitome of might, and, in

the other, the epitome of grace. I do not find all the artist's talent here, either because he was short on time, or because, in the

desire to do too much, he did too little." The line engravings that

illustrate his review, showing the head in profile, do not seem to

correspond to the description of this bust. At the Salon of 1808,

where Jacques-Louis David displayed his painting of The Crowning of Josephine by Napoleon, a similar confrontation occurred

between Houdon and Joseph Chinard, who exhibited more than

eleven works, including another bust of the empress (fig. i).

In the present bust, an official commission, Josephine

appears bare-headed, her hair held in place by a diadem adorned

4

with two rows of precious stones. She is dressed in a simple

Greek tunic with soft pleats and short sleeves, a panel of the

333

64
i.Joseph Chinará, Josephine, Empress of France, 1806, marble, Musée

national du château de Reuil Malmaison.

2. François-Joseph Bosio, Josephine, Empress of France, 1808, plaster, Musée

national du château de Reuil Malmaison.

tunic falling over her left shoulder. Her head, held proudly, is

turned slightly to her right; her small mouth, accentuated with

a deep line, hints at a smile. Here again, one can only admire the

realistic technique Houdon used to depict the curls and locks

of hair that frame Josephine's forehead and the fine details of the

costume, extending even to the delicate relief of the embroidery

pattern that borders the tunic. The same finishing touches can

be seen here as on the bust of the emperor (cat. 63).

Houdon, sensitive to the empress' charms, provided a

portrait of her that is undoubtedly true to life and keenly

observed. At the same Salon of 1808, François-Joseph Bosio

put the Canovian theory of the "ideal portrait" into practice, with

another bust of the empress in a Greek tunic (fig. 2). Josephine's

personal tastes would favor that new generation of sculptors of

the French school as well as the Italian, Antonio Canova.

CLAUD E VANDALLE

PROVENANC E

Musée du Louvre, Paris, in storage in 1816; then at the Tuileries and

Fontainebleau, ça. 1824; Musée de Versailles, 1832 (AMN, 83: inventory of

the statues and busts transferred from Fontainebleau); at the opening of the

Musée de Louis-Philippe, this bust was paired with that of the emperor in

the "Napoleon vestibule," on the ground floor of the south wing.

EXHIBITION S

Paris, Salon cat. 1808,102, no. 704; Paris 1928,47, no. 41; Versailles 1928,

24, no. 22; Lettres de Bonaparte à Joséphine [exh. cat., Bibliothèque Nationale]

(Paris, 1935); Cinq siècles d'histoire de France [exh. cat., World's Fair] (New

York, 1939), 85, no. 334; Chicago 1962-1963, no. 135; Le Roi Louis-Napoléon

et la Hollande [exh. cat., Institut Néerlandais / Rijksmusem] (Paris, 1959),

31, no. 21; Paris 1999, no. 431.

REFERENCE S

Chaussard 1806, 477; Clarac 1853, 6:235, no. 3580, pi. 1127; Délerot and

Legrelle 1857,4:198; Giacometti 1918-1919,1:259,2:78-80; Vaudoyer 1928,

no. 4449, 602, ill; Réau 1964,1:89-91,180,453-455,2:51-52, no. 242, pi.

132; Arnason 1976,109, fig. 200; Versailles cat. 1993, 204, no. 913.

RELATE D WORK S

Salon of 1806, nos. 601 and 602: two busts "faits d'après nature"; His Majesty

the Emperor and Her Majesty the Empress; possibly the model with a base

334
LAT E WO R K S

that remained in the sculptor's studio alongside a terracotta bust of the

emperor and that sold for 41 francs at the posthumous sale, 15 -17 Dec.

1928; or possibly plaster, as indicated in the Journal de Paris. A plaster bust,

identified during the Second Empire as formerly in the collection of the

painter C. Jacques, then later in the collection of Henri Rochefort, was

inscribed "Houdon 1808." According to Giacometti 1929, 2:15, it could be

the plaster model (it bore tool and finishing marks).

Plaster bust acquired by André Joubin from the Edmond Courty collection, Châtillon-sous-Bagneux; Albert Besnard sale, Paris, 31 May 1934,

no. 105 (Réau 1964,126).

Terracotta bust (head only), also listed in the Edmund Courty collection,

in which the diadem worn by Josephine is adorned with a medallion bearing the emperor's profile.

Musée national du château de Reuil Malmaison; two busts of Josephine

after Houdon, one in plaster and one in terracotta, by Jean Chrysostome

Sansón, famous in the nineteenth century for his reproductions in terracotta, porcelain, and biscuit porcelain.

Olivier Choppin de Janvy and Massol sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 9 Dec.

2002,150, no. 97, ill.; H. 56.5 cm, W. 25.5 cm, D. 24 cm; ca. 1806; probably

a cast of the terracotta from the Salon of 1806; compared to Versailles marble, it has a shorter truncation and lacks drapery, the hair is pulled back from

the face in long strands, with a diadem worn on top of the head bearing a

profile portrait of Napoleon; said to come from the collection of CharlesJacques then Henri Rochefort [unverified] (see Giacometti 1929, 2:15; Reau

1964, 2:50, no. 234 B, pi. CXXIV; Amason 1975,120 n. 252).

Signature on cat. 64

Back view of cat. 64

1. Biographical information excerpted from Dictionnaire Napoléon (Paris, 1987), 976-978, entry compiled

by Nicole Hubert and Gérard Hubert.

2. Fouché, report of 16 Aug. 1806, cited in Ernest

d'Hauterive, La Police secrète du Premier Empire (Paris,

1913), 2:463 (no. 1445), and in Aulard 1914, 2:700.

3. Chaussard 1806, pi. 24. The bust of the

empress is represented as a head on a base; the

bust of the emperor in military uniform is cut

off above the shoulders.

4. AMN, S6-i. On 15 Nov. 1808 an order of payment

in the amount of 3,000 francs was issued for

Houdon's execution of a marble bust of the empress

and queen, which was delivered to the museum.

5. Consulate and Empire fashions were inspired by

antiquity; fashion trends were reported in the newspapers and were also the subject of reports from the

minister of the interior.

6. AMN, V2, letter of 26 June 1855. Vital Dubray,

hired to execute the statue of Empress Josephine for

Martinique, was inspired, for the reproduction of her

features, by Houdon's bust, which he borrowed

from the Musée de Versailles.

7. Gérard Hubert, "La Collection de sculptures modernes réunie par l'impératrice Joséphine dans son

domaine privé de Malmaison," in Rencontres de l'Ecole

du Louvre. La Sculpture du XIXe siècle, une mémoire

retrouvée (Paris, 1986), 69-81.

335

Statue of François-Marie Arouet,

called Voltaire (1694-1778)

Circa 1806-1812

White marble on self-base

H. 199 cm (with base: 209 cm), W. 74 cm

Le Panthéon, Paris, Centre des monuments nationaux

After having been left in the vault of the Abbey of Scellières in

Champagne for thirteen years, the remains of Voltaire were

returned to Paris in 1791 and deposited, accompanied by theatrical festivities, in the crypt of the Panthéon, the former church

of Sainte-Geneviève, rededicated as a Temple of Great Men1.

Fifteen years later, in 1806, Napoleon chose the Panthéon as

one of the architectural projects in his new imperial capital that

were to help justify his dual legitimacy from dynastic monarchs

and the representatives of the Enlightenment. Consequently,

he ordered several structural changes to the edifice, especially

to the crypt, which, as the designated sepulcher for past and

future "Great Men," was to be rearranged into a series of niches

for additional sarcophagi.

Napoleon intended to associate the tombs of Voltaire and

Rousseau, today in the vestibule of the crypt, with a mausoleum

for his brother-in-law, General Charles-Victor-Emmanuel

Leclerc, and to honor each man with a full-length statue, as

he outlined on 26 February 1806: "The minister... will have

work done to embellish the church and the construction of a

mausoleum in memory of Voltaire and General Leclerc. These

monuments must be very beautiful. It would seem appropriate to return to the practice of placing the statues on the tombs,

avoiding as much as possible any type of allegory in the compositions." While Houdon was selected to execute the tomb of

Voltaire, the mausoleum for General Leclerc was assigned to

Jean-Guillaume Moitié, who learned the news from Houdon

on 4 April 1806. In July the Parisian newspapers made the

official announcement that the tomb of Voltaire in the church

of Sainte-Geneviève would soon be replaced by a marble monument, commissioned from "the celebrated sculptor Houdon,"

to be placed against one of the walls of the sepulchral chape4l.

Although the exact terms of Houdon's commission are

unknown, the documents concerning Moitte's reveal some

pertinent information: Moitte received 36,000 francs in total

compensation, paid in three equal installments, for a funeral

monument consisting of a life-size statue, a pedestal with basreliefs, and an inscription tablet. Interestingly, only the models, completed in September 1808, were by Moitte's own hand;

he subcontracted their execution in marble to other sculptors.

Around the turn of the year 1811-1812, and after Moitte's

death, the statue of Leclerc was placed in the Panthéon to "the

right of the nave," whence only a few years later it began an

odyssey that eventually led to a public square in Leclerc's native

town of Pontoise.

337

65

++
i. Houdon, Cicero, 1804, plaster, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

Houdon's marble statue of Voltaire, exhibited in the Salon

of 1812, was received with moderate enthusiasm by the reviewers: "M. Houdon is accustomed to reproducing in marble the

features of Voltaire. The new statue of this famous man, which

he exhibited under the no. 1090, has the same kind of quality,

but because the figure is standing and the artist believed that the

thinness of the body of the one he has represented should be

felt, even under an ample drapery, this statue seems a little too

tall." The fact that another critic, Castellan, referred to Houdon's

"renewed" presentation of this statue suggests that the marble

had been preceded by another public display, perhaps of its

rendering in plaster.

Houdon portrays the late philosopher with a scarf knotted

around his neck and dressed in a long, heavy robe de chambre,

which is gathered under his left elbow like a Roman toga to

reveal his stocking-covered legs up to the knees. Shown in a

classical contrapposto stance, Voltaire's elongated figure seems

to move with the drapery, the folds of which draw attention to

the writing pads in his left hand; his relaxed right hand holds a

quill pen. A sword and a mask are placed at his feet, symbolizing his conquest of the realms of theater and justice. Voltaire's

face is a lively reinterpretation of the sculptor's own bust of

Voltaire "tête nue" (cat. 23), created almost thirty years earlier

and repeated innumerable times. With the energetic smile,

the extra hair on top of the head, and the less gaunt features,

the standing Voltaire is a younger version of the same subject

seen in the seated portrait (Frank essay, fig. 2). Consistent with

Napoleon's request to avoid allegorical depictions, Houdon represents the celebrated philosopher in the manner of the statues

of ancient legislators commissioned for the French senate, such

as his own figure of Cicero (fig. i), choosing a contemporary costume while at the same time alluding to its classical prototypes.

ULRIK E D. MATHIES

Back view of cat. 65

338
 

PROVENANC E

Commissioned in 1806 by Napoleon for Voltaire's tomb in the Panthéon

(see text above); exhibited in the Salon of 1812 and probably installed in the

crypt of the Panthéon shortly thereafter; moved in 1821, along with the sarcophagi of Voltaire and Rousseau, from its provisional location in the middle of the crypt to its present location at the far end of the crypt ("Procès-verbal

de transférement," 29 Dec. 1821; in Damilaville 1878,185-187).

EXHIBITION S

Paris, Salon cat. 1812,114, no. 1090: "Statue en marbre de Voltaire."

REFERENCE S

Anatole de Montaiglon, "Un Voltaire de Houdon," L'Intermédiaire des

chercheurs et curieux i, no. 5 (i May 1864), 68; Damilaville 1878,185-187;

Desnoiresterres 1879,

 X37î Lami

 1910-1911, 1:434; [Paul Vitry], "Séance

du 3 Novembre 1911," BSHAF (1911), 352-353; Giacometti 1918-1919,

3:206-207; Réau i924b, 69; Giacometti 1929, 2:282; Réau 1964,

1:71-72, 450-451; 2:20, no. 42, pi. 34; Arnason 1975, 105-106, 120 n.

259, fig. 204, pis. 140-142.

RELATE D WORK S

Reduced plaster model of the statue offered in posthumous sale of the

contents of Houdon's studio, 15-17 Dec. 1828,15, no. 14: "Plâtre—Modèle

réduit de la statue de Voltaire, par M. Houdon, qui était placée au Panthéon

français"; another statuette of "Voltaire debout tenant un livre" in M. Vidal

sale, 3-5 Feb. 1868, no. 290.

1. See Le Panthéon. Symbole des révolutions. De l'église de

la nation au temple des grands hommes [exh. cat., Hôtel

de Sully] (Paris, 1989).

2. Napoleon's letter to M. Champagny, in Corn

Napoléon, 1862,12:102, no. 9890.

3. Un ménage d'artistes sous le Premier Empire. Journal

inédit de Madame Moitié, femme de Jean-Guillaume

Moitte, statuaire, membre de l'Académie des beaux-arts,

1805-2807, éd. P. Cottin (Paris, 1932), 19.

4. Almost identical notices in thé Journal de Paris

(23 July 1806) and thé Mercure de France 25 (July-Sept.

1806), 182; quoted in Réau 1964,1:71,450.

5. See Gisela Gramaccini, Jean-Guillaume Moitte

(1746-1810). Leben und Werk (Berlin, 1993), 1:161-163,

2:103-104, no. 239; Isabell Lemaistre, "De Sainte

Geneviève au Panthéon. Les Différents Programmes

de sculpture, à la lumière des récentes découvertes,"

in Paris 1989, 241-242 (see note i above).

6. Lemaistre 1989, 241.

7. R. J. Durdent, Galerie des peintures français du Salon

de 1812 ou coup d'oeil critique sur leur principaux tableaux

et sur les différents ouvrages de sculpture, architecture et

gravure (Paris, 1813), 81.

8. [Castellan], Moniteur universel, 5 Jan. 1813; published

in Réau 1964,1:71-72. The Salon catalogue of 1810,

however, does not list any entries for Houdon.

339

late works

66

Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761-1845),

Houdon in His Studio

After 1803

Oil on canvas

85 x 105 cm

Musée d'art Thomas Henry, Cherbourg-Octeville, Gift of Thomas Henry, 1835 (inv. 835.94)

"In addition to [the works that] I deliver to those who honor me

with their trust, I always keep an exemplar for myself," Houdon

once wrote, emphasizing that "the mold always belongs to the

artist, unless different arrangements are made." Houdon's practice of exhibiting examples of his own works in his studio, both

as models for himself and as showpieces for interested customers, was much noted by his admirers and rivals, and it is

illustrated quite literally in Louis-Leopold Boilly's painting of

Houdon in his studio at the Musée des arts décoratifs in Paris

(fig. i) and its variant in Cherbourg. Both show the sculptor

surrounded by myriad statues and busts, either displayed on

pedestals or lined up on two shelves along the back and side

walls. The veracity and detail of Boilly's style make possible the

identification of a large percentage of the depicted works, giving

concrete evidence of their authenticity. These paintings provide

important visual confirmation of the appearance of Houdon's

studio, of his working methods, and of the sculptures completed before 1804, when the version in Paris was first shown at

the Salon.

One of the most prolific genre painters in France during

the Napoleonic era, Boilly received popular acclaim at the Salon

for his refined coloring, meticulous technique (emulating seventeenth-century Dutch artists), and animated subjects. His

repertoire ranged from sentimental moralizing themes and

trompe-l'oeil still lifes to vivid representations of everyday life and

group portraits, all executed in small, carefully finished compositions. There are no documents to illuminate the nature of

Boilly's relationship with Houdon, who was twenty years his

senior, but the importance of his portraits of the sculptor and

the fact that he also rendered a likeness of Houdon's brother

suggest a close connection.

In the Cherbourg painting Houdon, watched by two bystanders, applies final touches to an academic study in clay.

The sketch is placed on an adjustable tripod modeling stand,

with a bowl of water and a cloth nearby to moisten the clay.

In the right foreground, next to a pile of clothing, a male nude

model assumes a traditional academic pose, while two young

students on the left are drawing him from life. A veritable

gallery of the famous, dozens of Houdon's own works crowd

the dim background, including busts of Cagliostro, Molière,

Franklin, Rousseau, Henry of Prussia, Gluck, and Sophie

Arnould, along with statues of the Ecorche, Diana, La Frileuse, and

the Seated Voltaire. A large rectangular bas-relief, resting against

the pedestal of the Seated Voltaire may represent the terracotta

341

+
of The Queen ofSheba Presenting Gifts to Solomon (now lost), for

which Houdon received the Prix de Rome in 1761 and which he

4

kept in his possession until his death. Another lost object, a

profile portrait of one of the Mongolfier brothers, is documented

in the oval medallion next to the bearded head on the right wall

(cf. cat. 34). Some objects not actually present in Houdon's

studio may have been added by Boilly solely to enhance the

composition: the plaster cast of a female torso after the famous

Capitoline Aphrodite (front right) and the vase by Clodion (back

wall, lower shelf), for example, appear in various sizes and details

in several other paintings by Boilly.6

The canvas in Paris was exhibited at the Salon of 1804 under

the title "A Sculptor's Studio. Picture of a Family" (fig. i). Generally thought to have preceded the painting in Cherbourg,

it shows Houdon in an analogous spatial setting, this time

working on the bust of the mathematician and astronomer

Pierre-Simon Laplace. The focus on Houdon's wife and three

daughters, all wearing fashionable dresses in the style of the

Directoire, lends a more intimate character to this composition.

Mme Houdon sits in a chair matching and facing the one in

which Laplace poses, her shawl draped over its right arm. Immediately behind her stand her two oldest daughters, Sabine and

Anne-Ange, while the youngest, fourteen-year-old Claudine,

holds up a drawing, possibly by Boilly, that she has pulled from

a portfolio. Although the public admired the painting for its

verisimilitude, some of the Salon critics accused it of being

o

done with too dry a brush and a lack of liveliness. The eyecatching, crowded background is almost identical to that in the

Cherbourg version, with only a few busts or reliefs and some

accessories replaced, such as the antiquities added to the latter.

Exclusive to the painting in Paris are the bust of Mme Duquenoy

behind the feet of the Seated Voltaire and the hanging medallion of a man in profile on the right wall.

By the early nineteenth century Houdon's studio, "a place

9

that has won him so many crowns," was located in the Palais

des Beaux-Arts, formerly the Collège Mazarin and later the

Institut de France; the Houdon family occupied rooms in the

same building. Boilly characterizes the sculptor, then in his

sixties, as a short man of robust health and vitality. In the more

workshop-oriented painting in Cherbourg Houdon sports a

short smock over long pants instead of the dressier long coat

over stockings that he wears in the family portrait. Unchanged,

however, is his footwear—very comfortable looking "pantoufles," or slippers. One wonders if Houdon had these in mind

when he wrote to his friend Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha more than

thirty years prior to the execution of these paintings, criticizing

the impracticality of the fashionable footwear of his time:

"Many people who found my shoes ridiculous have changed

their opinion based on a simple explanation. Some among them

have even had shoes made in my style."11

ULRIK E D . MATHIE S

PROVENANC E

Given to the museum in 1835 by the art dealer, collector, and connoisseur

Thomas Henry (1766-1836), who probably acquired it in Paris between

1810 and 1830 (the author wishes to thank Benjamin Simon, Cherbourg,

for this information), possibly from Houdon's family after his death or

directly from Boilly.

EXHIBITION S

Paris 1889, 44, no. 61; Maler una Modell [exh. cat., Staatliche Kunsthalle]

(Baden-Baden, 1969), no. 91, ill.; London 1972,23-24, no. 36; Washington

1976,136, no. 215, ill; Le Nu dans l'art de l'âge préhistorique à nos jours [exh.

cat., Fondation Prouvost] (Septentrion, 1992-1993), 27, no. 31, ill.; The Art

of Louis-Leopold Boilly: Modem Life in Napoleonic France [exh. cat., Kimbell

Art Muséum] (Fort Worth, 1995-1996), no catalogue; Le Chemin de Millet.

Autour des collections du Musée Thomas Henry, Cherbourg [exh. cat., Muséo

Mercian] (Karuizawa, 2001), 117, no. 102, ill.

REFERENCE S

Notice des tableaux composant le musée de Cherbourg (Cherbourg, 1835), 34, no.

94 (and 2nd éd., Cherbourg 1870, 29, no. 94); Baron de Preux, "Houdon

dans son atelier par Boilly," GBA14 (1895), 306,308; Henry Harrisse, L.-L.

Boilly, peintre, dessinateur, et lithographe; sa vie et son oeuvre, 1761-1845...

(Paris, 1898), 40, ni, no. 312; Louis Gonse, Les Chefs-d'oeuvre des musées

de France. La Peinture (Paris, 1900), 97-98, ill.; Cherbourg. Musée Henry.

Peinture et Sculpture (Cherbourg, 1912), 24, no. 94; Paul Marmottan, Le

Peintre Louis Boilly (1761-1845) (Paris, 1913), 86, 111-113, pi. 28; André

Mabille de Poncheville, Boilly (Paris, 1931), 107-108; Réau 1964,1:191-192;

vol. 2, pi. CLVII.7; Arnason 1975, fig. 206; Boilly 1761-1845. Un grand

peintre français de la Révolution à la Restauration [exh. cat., Musée des BeauxArts] (Lille, 1988-1989), 98, ill.; Susan Siegfried, The Art of Louis-Leopold

Boilly: Modem Life in Napoleonic France (New Haven and London, 1995),

103-107, 2IO-2H nn. 21-28, fig. 81.

RELATE D WORK S

Cherbourg painting

Preparatory study (fig. 2) with slight variations in model and bystanders;

unknown location (formerly in possession of Jean Perron, descendent of

Houdon). See Paris 1928, 99, no. 108; and Réau 1964, 1:192, vol. 2, pi.

CLIX.I2.

342
i. Louis-Leopold Boilly, Houdon in His Studio, 1803-1804, oil on canvas, Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris.

343
T

the state

for the museum in 1892. See Constans 1995, 2:562.

Paris painting

Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris (inv. Pe 63) (see fig. i); oil on canvas,

88 x 115 cm; signed at bottom left: "L. Boilly"; Salon cat. 1804, 9, no. 41:

"L'atelier d'un sculpteur. Tableau de famille"; from Sabine Duval, Houdon's

daughter; passed on to Mme Maurice Sand, her niece; collection of Emile

Peyre, dealer, collector, and fashion decorator under the Second Empire;

bequeathed by him to the museum in 1905. See Harrisse 1898, 79-80,

no. 29; and Lille 1988-1989, 98, no. 31, ill. p. 99.

Preparatory study of Houdon modeling Laplace, oil on canvas, 45 x 37

cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille (inv. 364); possibly sale after Boilly's death,

31 Jan. 1845,no-

I2' given to museum by Julien Boilly in 1863. See Harrisse

1898, in, no. 310; and Lille 1988-1989, 96-97, no. 30, ill.

Preparatory studies of Houdon's two older daughters and Mme

Houdon, charcoal heightened with white (?), unknown location (formerly

in possession of Jean Perron). See Paris 1928, 99, no. 107; and Réau 1964,

1:191, vol. 2, pi. CLVlll.io-ii.

Attributed to Boilly, Houdon in His Studio, pen and ink with gray

' wash (?), unknown location (formerly Astron collection) (see fig. 2). See

Harrisse 1898,173, no. 1039; and de Preux 1895, ill. facing p. 306.

2. Louis-Leopold Boilly, Houdon in His Studio, pen and ink with wash (?),

unknown location.

Related painting

Boilly, Houdon Modeling the Bust of Napoleon as First Consul, oil on canvas,

55 x 45 cm, unknown location. See Harrisse 1898, in, no. 311; and Lille

1988-1989,96,111.

1. Unpublished correspondence between Houdon

and the treasurer of cardinal de Rohan, 16 Mar.

through May 1788: "Outre ceux que je livre à ceux qui

m'honorent de leur confiance, j'en garde toujours

un exemplaire pour moy....Le moule apartient toujours

à l'artiste à moins qu'on ne prenne des arrangemens

differens" (BMV, F 946, nos. 116 and 117).

2. The portrait of "frère d'Houdon" was in the sale after

Boilly's death, 31 Jan. 1845, 5, no. 13. A sentimental

anecdote has Houdon's youngest daughter, Claudine,

at one time engaged to Boilly's son Julien. See

Marmottan 1913, 87-88, on the painting in Paris.

3. The identifications of the tall man behind

Houdon as the artist, collector, and art administrator

Dominique-Vivant Denon and one of the pupils as

Boilly's son Julien (de Preux 1895, 306 and 308) lack

any documentary or iconographical support.

4. Posthumous sale of contents of Houdon's studio,

15-17 Dec. 1828,14, no. 8. See Guilhem Scherf,

"Pierre Julien et le décor sculpté de l'église SainteGeneviève à Paris," La Revue du Louvre et des musées

de France, no. 2 (1988), 134 n. 27, fig. 19.

5. Painted plaster, in Houdon's posthumous sale, 1828,

6. E.g., A Painter's Studio (National Gallery of Art,

Washington), and Studio of a Young Artist (Pushkin

Museum, Moscow); see Siegfried 1995, figs. 151-152.

For the Clodion vase see Paris 1992, 78-86, nos. 1-2.

7. Marmottan 1913,111-113, erroneously suggested

the often-repeated date of 1808. A plaster bust of

Laplace by Houdon was bequeathed to the Musée

des arts décoratifs by the collector Peyre together

with the painting (inv. PE 846).

8. "Lettre adressée à Messieurs les rédacteurs du journal," Annales des sciences, de la littérature et des arts

(Deloynes XXXII, 437-438, no. 888); M. B.( "Salon de

1804," Jowrna/ des débats (Deloynes XXXII, 51-52, no.

880); "Petites affiches du Salon," Arlequin au muséum,

no. 2 (1804), 4 (Deloynes XXXI, 666, no. 866); Lettres

impartiales sur les expositions de l'an XIII par un amateur

(Paris, 1804), ii (Deloynes XXXI, no. 876).

9. Ducray-Duminil, "Suite de l'exposition des tableaux

du Salon," Journal des petites affiches de Paris (Deloynes

XXXII, 254, no. 883).

10. Vitry i907d, 220.

11. See Appendix in the present catalogue, lines 208-211.

344

Copy by Maurice Lecesne,oil on canvas,88x106cm,Musee national

du chateau de Versailes (inv.MV 5280;RF 793);commissioned by the state

17,no.38


Abbreviated Chronology of Houdon's Life and Career

Monique Barbier, translated and edited by Anne L. Poulet

1735

5 Feb. — Marriage at Versailles of

Jacques Houdon (b. 1706), son of

farmers, and Anne Rabâche (b. 1712),

daughter and sister of gardeners at

Versailles (J. Foulques Josseaume,

"Les Origines familiales du sculpteur

Jean Houdon," Bulletin de la Société

historique et archéologique de Corbeil,

d'Etampes et du Hurepoix [1978],

27-32). Ten children are born of this

union, five of whom survive. Jacques

is a servant in the home of M. de La

Motte, a high-ranking official of the

Bâtiments du Roi at Versailles.

1735

29 Oct. —Birth of Jacques-Philippe

Houdon, who will become curator of

collections at Menus Plaisirs du Roi,

Paris, beginning in 1767.

1741

20 Mar. — Birth of Jean-Antoine

Houdon, baptized 23 Mar. at the church

of Saint-Louis, Versailles. Godfather,

Jean-Antoine Lemire, is an officer of

the queen.

1742

Houdon family moves to Paris, parish

of Saint-Germain 1'Auxerrois.

Establishment by the king of the Ecole

royale des élèves protégés in thé Paris

house of M. de La Motte; Jacques

Houdon is named concierge (AN, 01

1928; Louis-Charles Courajod, L'Ecole

royale des âèves protégés [Paris, 1874], 30).

1756

26 Sept. — Jean- Antoine Houdon,

sculpture student, wins third-class

medal in third-quarter (July) competition at the Ecole royale (ENSBA,

MS 93, fol. 31; Con. directeurs, 12:22).

i Oct. — Jean- Antoine Houdon registers

as student of sculptor Michel- Ange

Slodtz at the Académie royale (ENSBA,

MS 45, fol. 18).

1761

29 Aug. — Houdon wins first prize in

sculpture for the relief The Queen of

Sheba Presenting Gifts to Solomon, and

thus qualifies to enter the Ecole royale

as a resident student for three years,

followed by four years at the Académie

de France in Rome. His father has power

of attorney to receive the son's quarterly

pension payments from the king

(ENSBA, MS 93, fol. 33; AN, OI1927, no.

6; Procès-verbaux, 7:161,175, 205).

1762

Five other students are residents at the

Ecole royale with Houdon, including

Pierre Julien, Dominique LeFebvre, and

Louis-Simon Boizot; each student

receives 751 livres per quarter (AN, 01

1927, no. 7).

1764

18 Aug. — Carle Van Loo, director of

the Ecole royale, awards first prizes for

1761 to LeFebvre for painting and

Houdon for sculpture, enabling them

to enter the Académie de France in

Rome under the direction of

Charles Natoire.

19 Aug. — Houdon receives his

certificate as a sculpture student.

20 Aug. — He is given 300 livres to

cover the cost of his trip to Rome.

3 Oct. — He leaves Paris with Lefebvre

and travels by boat from Toulon to

Civita Vecchia.

347

1758

1748
ii Nov. —He arrives in Rome (Corr.

directeurs, 12:40,49, 50, 58, 65,118,119,

122,137,140,146,151).

1765

With Houdon at the Académie de

France in Rome are Lefebvre, Boizot,

Julien, Clodion, Jean-Bernard Restout,

and Félix Lecomte among others.

1766

16 July—Houdon begins models for

two statues of Saint Bruno and Saint

John the Baptist for the Carthusians

in Rome.

24 Aug. — Houdon's project for the

Carthusians is approved.

1767

ii Feb. — Houdon has completed a lifesize anatomical study, his Ecorché, in

preparation for the statue of Saint John

the Baptist for the Carthusians and

has had it cast in order to sell copies.

Natoire asks permission to acquire a

version of it for the Académie. Houdon

and a fellow student at the Académie,

German painter Johann Christian von

Mannlich, are studying anatomy with a

surgeon, M. Séguier, at Saint-Louis des

Français (Réau 1964,1:39).

1768

Houdon's leaves Académie de France

in Rome 2 Nov., arriving in Paris 22

Nov. (BMV, F 945, no. 3).

1769

20 May—An Ecorché is offered to the

cardinal de Bernis, French ambassador

to Rome.

23 July— Houdon is accepted as an

agréé, a candidate for membership in

the Académie royale, by a vote of

twenty-seven to three (AN 011927;

Procès-verbaux, 8:19).

25 Aug. — Salon du Louvre opens, with

Houdon exhibiting for the first time.

Though his name does not appear

in the Salon catalogue [livret], his

submissions are documented in

sketches by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin

and in Salon reviews.

30 Sept. —Houdon gives a plaster

Ecorché to the Académie royale (it is

painted realistically in polychrome by

the Académie, 22 June 1793) (Procèsverbaux, 8:29).

8 Nov.—The Académie de Toulouse

asks that the king give them a plaster

of the Ecorché, but he refuses.

1771

25 Aug. — Salon opens, and Houdon

exhibits several works, including the

plaster model for Morpheus and portrait

bust of Diderot.

20 Sept.—The marquis de Marigny,

then director of the Bâtiments du Roi,

grants Houdon (as an agréé) permission

to visit ducal court of Saxe-Gotha

between 12 Oct. and 20 Dec.

25 Oct. to 3 Dec. — Houdon stays at

Schloss Friedenstein in Gotha (FLB,

Chart A 1692; see Bogyay 1935,135).

1772

8 Mar. — Houdon occupies workshops

at the foundry of the city of Paris in

the faubourg du Roule, initially free of

charge, then accepting a nine-year lease

to rent space for 375 livres per year

beginning in 1782. But see below,

under 22 Mar. 1787 (BMV, F 945, no. 3;

Vitry i9O7d, 217-220; Bresc-Bautier

1994,372-377).

July— Houdon sends a shipment of

works to Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha,

including sixteen of his early sculptures

in plaster and other objects intended

for the duke's planned art academy

(FLB, Chart A 712, fols. 8r-i4r;

see Appendix in the present catalogue,

PP-355-360)-

1773

23 Apr. to i July— Houdon makes

second trip to the court of Saxe-Gotha.

25 Aug. — Salon opens, showing works

done by Houdon for Russian and

German patrons as well as his Head

of Belisarius.

1775

By this time (or earlier) Houdon has a

studio in the Bibliothèque du Roi, rue

Richelieu, located in a large room on

the ground floor of the Robert de Cotte

wing in front of the Salle des Globes.

But see below, under 27 July 1796

(Vitry i907d, 217-220).

5 Apr. — Houdon signs a contract with

the actress Sophie Arnould to execute

her portrait in marble by Aug. and provide thirty copies in plaster as well as

the terracotta bust.

9-13 Aug. —The Ecole royale des

élèves protégés closes, and Jacques

Houdon retires. He, his wife, and

three younger children move in with

Jean-Antoine at 197 faubourg du Roule.

25 Aug. — Salon opens, including

Houdon's plaster model of a Bather,

several portrait busts, and the model for

the tomb of Duchess Louise Dorothea

of Saxe-Gotha.

348

1773
ABBREVIATE D CHRONOLOG Y

1776

Houdon is elected an honorary associate of the Académie de Toulouse, with

the Head ofBelisarius (Salon of 1773) as

his reception piece (Réau 1964,1:27).

13 Feb.—At his studio Houdon sells

reduced plaster casts of the model of

his Ecorché, its arm raised above the

head, with an order from the Conseil

du Roi that prohibits counterfeiting

(BMV, F 946, nos. 229 and 231 bis).

14,15,16, 23 July—Subscription held

for a marble bust of Gluck to be delivered in 1777 and placed in main

entrance hall of the Paris Opéra (AN,

MC, étude ill, 1.1079, étude Me

Athanase Lemoine; Bachaumont

1780-1789, 9:191-192,18 Aug. 1776).

30 Sept.—Actors from the ComédieFrançaise commission Houdon to

do a marble bust of Molière, which is

completed in Mar. 1778 (ACF, "registre

des délibérations"; Journal de Paris,

10 Mar. 1778).

1777

26 July—Houdon is received as a

member of the Académie royale, with

Morpheus (marble reduction of the lifesize plaster exhibited at the Salon of

1771), as his reception piece (Procèsverbaux, 8:59, 273; 10:19, 52; Réau

1964,1:42).

25 Aug. — Salon opens, with Houdon

exhibiting more than twenty-five sculptures, including many portraits busts,

a marble Bust of Diana, models for two

Golitsyn tombs, and the marble

Morpheus (Vitry i9O7d, 217-220).

Aug-Sept— Houdon's Naiad,

announced in the Salon catalogue of

1777, is on view in his studio along with

his Diana the Huntress ("Exposition au

Salon du Louvre. . . en 1777," Mercure

de France [Deloynes X, no. 191, pp.

1104-1105]; Bachaumont 1780, 274-275,

letter ill, 22 Sept. 1777).

Members of the stock exchange commission Houdon to do a bust of Louis

XVI (Réau 1964, 1:73).

lo Mar. —Journal de Paris announces

that Houdon's bust of Molière for the

Comédie- Française is finished and on

view in his studio at the Bibliothèque

du Roi.

End of Mar. — Houdon's bust of Voltaire

is finished and on view in his studio.

1 6 Apr. — "All of Paris" is going to see

the bust of Voltaire in Houdon's studio

(Métra 1787-1790, 6:164).

4 June— Académie française commissions Houdon to do a bust of Voltaire,

who had died 30 May.

i o June— Houdon offers plaster busts

of Voltaire to "most" of the academicians (Registres 1895, 3:435, 436, 440,

442,447).

3 July — Houdon takes the death mask

of Jean- Jacques Rousseau.

1779

lo Jan. — Houdon proposes to JeanBaptiste Pierre, premier peintre du Roi,

that he execute his Bather in marble

and her attendant, a Negress, in lead

(Réau 1964, 1:47). His offer is declined.

18 Feb. — Houdon's bust of Voltaire is

installed in foyer of the ComédieFrançaise (ACF " registre des assemblées"; Bachaumont 1780-1789,

13:294-295, 26 Feb. 1779; Journal de

Paris, 20 Feb. 1779).

20 Feb.—Journal de Paris announces

Houdon's acceptance as a member of

the Loge des Neuf Soeurs.

7 Mar. — Société des Beaux-Arts,

Montpellier, purchases a large plaster

Ecorché. Houdon offers them a smaller

Ecorché, a bust of Molière, and a skull

(ADH, D 235, Ms 247; see Réau

1964,1:40).

25 Aug. — Salon opens, with Houdon

exhibiting numerous works, including

portrait busts of Molière, Voltaire,

Rousseau, and Benjamin Franklin as

well as a gilt bronze Seated Voltaire and

a marble bust of Voltaire "à l'antique"

made for Catherine II of Russia.

Oct. — Houdon receives royal commission for a statue of the maréchal de

Tourville for the Salon of 1781 (Réau

1964,1:51, 52).

28 Dec. — Houdon exhibits works at

the Société des Beaux-Arts, Montpellier,

nos. 178-184,186,187 (Stein 1913,

375-378,402).

1780

Feb. — Large model of the Seated

Voltaire is completed for the writer's

niece, Mme Denis (AN, 01 845, 01

8459; Réau 1964,1:54).

i May—Loge des Neuf Soeurs commissions Houdon to do a bust of John Paul

Jones (Corr. littéraire, 12:394; Réau

1964,1:84).

29 Aug. —City of Langres requests a

portrait of Diderot, who sends a bronze

bust by Houdon, delivered 30 Apr. 1781.

Houdon offers several plasters of

Diderot to the city (Réau 1964,1:78).

349

1778
13-19 May—Houdon exhibits the

marble statue of Diana in his studio at

the Bibliothèque du Roi (Bachaumont

1780-1789,17:185 and 198-199,13

May and 19 May 1781).

6 July—Catherine II of Russia commissions Houdon to do a marble bust of

the comte de Buffon, which is delivered

29 June 1782 (Réau 1964,1:82).

25 Aug. — Salon opens, with Houdon

showing marble statues of Tourville

and the Seated Voltaire and several

portrait busts in plaster and marble.

Concurrently he exhibits the marble

statue of Diana in his studio at the

Bibliothèque du Roi (Réau 1964,1:44).

1783

6 Mar. — Houdon's bust of Franklin is

installed at the Musée de Paris

(Bachaumont 1780-1789, 22:154-155,

ii Mar. 1783).

7 Aug. —U.S. Congress passes resolution to commission an equestrian

statue of George Washington (BMV,

F 946, no. 78).

25 Aug. — Salon opens, and Houdon

exhibits La Frileuse, the model for

a fountain for the duc de Chartres,

and portrait busts of Larive, Buffon,

La Fontaine, and Antoine Louis.

1784

Houdon gives a bust of Jean Le Rond

d'Alembert to the Académie royale des

sciences (Bachaumont 1780-1789,

25:288, 2i April 1784; Histoire de

l'Académie royale des sciences [Paris,

1786]). Louis XVI orders a bust of

Prince Henry of Prussia from Houdon

(Salon of 1785, no. 299); it is delivered

to the comte d'Angiviller, director of

the Bâtiments du Roi, in 1786 (Réau

1964,1:392).

i o Dec. —Jefferson recommends

Houdon to Washington as the best

artist to execute his statue (BMV, F 946,

no. 223; see Vitry 1907^ 147-209;

Réau 1964,1:57).

1785

Houdon submits a proposal for a

monument to Louis XVI in Brest (AN

0 19182; Réau 1964,1:65).

The duc de Brissac commissions his

bust from Houdon, to be delivered in

1788 (BMV, F 946, nos. 119-131).

28 July—Houdon leaves for America,

traveling with Franklin, to do a portrait

of George Washington.

25 Aug. — Salon opens, excluding

Houdon's Frileuse and his busts of the

cardinal de Rohan and Cagliostro but

includes other portrait busts in plaster

and marble, such as those of Larive and

Prince Henry of Prussia (BMV, F 946,

no. 117; Métra 1787-1790,18:345).

25 Dec. — Houdon arrives in France,

returning from America (BMV, F 945,

no. 2; Hart and Biddle 1911, 206).

1786

1 July—Marriage of Jean-Antoine

Houdon to Marie-Ange-Cécile Langlois

(b. 2i Sept. 1765), daughter of Jean

Langlois, an employee of the king, and

of Marie-Françoise Lorteau (d. 22 Oct.

1765), at the home of the bride's

adoptive mother, the countess de

Villegagnon. Marriage contract is

executed 12 June 1786, and the bride

receives 52,000 livres from Mme de

Villegagnon (BMV, F 945, nos. 3,18;

Réau 1964,1:31).

29 July—Jacques Houdon,

aged 81, dies at the home of his

son Jean-Antoine.

28 Sept. — Marble bust of Lafayette is

installed in the Hôtel de Ville, Paris, as

a gift of the Commonwealth of Virginia

(Lacroix 1894-1898,4:636 n. 5;

Bachaumont 1780-1789, 33:90-92,

6-7 Oct. 1786).

Dec. — Marble bust of Washington is

displayed in Houdon's studio (Bachaumont 1780-1789,33: 274,16 Dec. 1786).

1787

25 Feb. — Birth of Houdon's first

daughter, Sabine-Marguerite-Josèphe

(BMV, F 945, no. 17).

22 Mar. — Expelled from the workshops

and foundry belonging to the city

of Paris, which he has occupied since

1772, Houdon purchases a house

across the street and builds new

furnaces (AN, MC, Me Aleaume, étude

LXXXVI, 1. 851; Simone GranboulanFéral, "Maisons de Jean-Antoine

Houdon 'puis' Monastère des Pères

dominicains du Roule," La Rue du

Faubourg Saint-Honoré [Paris, 1994],

no. 405; BMV, F 946, no. 52; Houdon's

mémoire to Bachelier, 1794).

25 Aug. — Salon opens, with Houdon

exhibiting busts of Prince Henry of

Prussia, Lafayette, and Washington

(BMV, F 946, no. 241).

1788

19 Sept. — Bronze Apollo is cast in

Houdon's studio in the faubourg du

Roule (BMV, F 946, no. 245; Journal de

Paris, 24 Sept. 1788; Réau 1964,1:47).

15 Oct. —Birth of Houdon's second

daughter, Anne-Ange (BMV, F 945,

no. 15).

28 Nov.—The duc d'Orléans offers

Houdon an annual and perpetual subsidy

of 500 livres, in addition to paying 10,000

livres for the bronze Frileuse (AN, MC,

étude LXXVI, 1. 88, notaire Rouen).

350

1781
ABBREVIATE D CHRONOLOG Y

1789

25 Aug. — Salon opens, with Houdon

showing portrait busts that include a

bronze of Prince Henry of Prussia and

a plaster of Thomas Jefferson.

7 Sept.—The district of Saint-Philippe

du Roule recommends Houdon to the

Commune of Paris to execute a marble

bust of Jacques Necker, and he receives

the commission (Lacroix 1894-1898,

1:497).

30 Dec. —Houdon announces that

the bust of Necker is finished and on

view in his studio; it is installed in the

Hôtel de Ville on 21 Jan. 1790 (Lacroix

1894-1898, 3:319, 505 n. 3; 4:636).

1790

ii Feb. —Louis XVI commissions

Houdon to execute his bust in marble

so he can give it to the city of Paris.

The bust is completed by 30 Nov. and

installed without ceremony in the

Hôtel de Ville, probably 23 Mar. 1791

(Lacroix 1894-1898, 4:127,128,175,

489; Réau 1964,1:73, 74).

29 Oct. — Birth of Houdon's third

daughter, Antoinette-Claude (BMV,

F 945, no. 16).

2i Dec. — National Assembly votes

to have a statue of Rousseau executed

and in Feb. 1791 orders that it be an

open competition (BMV, F 946, no.

90-106; Hippolyte Buffenoir, Les

Portraits de Jean-Jacques [Paris, 1913],

1:227-228; Réau 1964,1:66).

1791

2i Aug. —Constituent Assembly

decrees that the Salon will no longer

be limited to members of the Académie

royale, and instead of opening in

Aug., the Salon opens in Sept.

9 Mar. and 23 June—Houdon submits

model for the statue of Rousseau, with

two letters to Camus, president of the

Comité des pensions, who replies that

the commission is open to competition

(A.Tuetey, Répertoire general des sources

manuscrites de l'histoire de Pans pendant

la Révolution française [1894], 3:122, no.

1354). The statue was never executed.

13 Oct. —Commune of Paris decides to

commission a replica of Houdon's statue

of Washington to offer to Lafayette.

Contract is signed 21 June 1792 (Lacroix

1900 -1914,7:168,172; Réau 1964,1:64,

BMV, F 946, nos. 83 -89). The statue

was never executed.

1792

7 July—Houdon is named adjunct

professor at the Académie royale

(Procès-verbaux, 10:170).

i o Aug. — Houdon's busts of Lafayette,

Necker, and Louis XVI along with

Louis-Pierre Deseine's bust of Bailly

are removed from the Hôtel de Ville

and reportedly smashed (Lacroix

1900-1914, 7:172,173; Procès-verbaux

de la Commune de Paris, 1894, p. 6).

27 Oct. — Houdon gives the Académie

royale a second Ecorché in bronze with

the arm raised as well as several plaster

casts (Procès-verbaux, 10:24, 58,187,

197, 210, 2ii, 213, 221).

22 Nov. — Houdon is assigned lodgings

in the museum section of the Cour du

Louvre, but he is forced out 26 Apr.

1794 (BMV, F 946, no. 7).

26 Nov. — Houdon begins work on the

statue of Saint Scholastica (H. Léonardon, "Un aide sculpteur de Houdon et

de François Masson," Mémoires de la

Société des sciences morales, des lettres et

des arts de Seine et Oise [1894]

18:152-155).

1793

25 Aug. — Salon opens, with Houdon

exhibiting a model for the statue of

Washington, a small Frileuse, a Vestal,

and several busts.

8 Aug. — National Convention suppresses

the academies. The artists want to retain

their apartments in the Louvre (M. Bonnaire, Procès-verbaux de l'Académie des

Beaux-arts [1937 -1947] i:XXXVl).

25 Sept. — Houdon renounces his title

as academician at meeting of the

Commune générale des arts, joined by

Boizot and others on 30 Sept., and by

Lecomte and Claude Dejoux on i Oct.

(Henry Lapauze, Procès-verbaux de la

Commune générale des arts... [1903], 103,

i2i, 127; Réau 1964,1:32).

1794

28 Mar. — Revival committee of the

Lycée republican thanks Houdon for

giving them terracotta busts of Voltaire

and Rousseau and a plaster bust of

Franklin (BMV, F 946, nos. 29, 30, 31;

Réau 1964,1:99).

26 Apr. — Houdon is expelled from his

apartment in the workshops of the

Louvre, but is still living there in 1796

(BMV, F 946, no. i).

i May—Committee of Public Safety

decides to purchase Houdon's statue

of Philosophy to be placed in the first

assembly room of the National Convention. The statue is installed in Feb. 1795

(BMV, F 946, nos. 64-71 ; FrançoisAlphonse Aulard, Receuil des actes du

Comité de salut public [1900], 13:179,

[1910], 20:205).

ii Oct. — Houdon writes mémoire to

Bachelier (BMV, F 946, no. 52; Réau

1964,1:99).

351
Salon—Houdon exhibits only one

work, the bust of Barthélémy.

8 Oct. — Houdon sells a number of his

works at the Bibliothèque du Roi.

27 Nov. — Houdon is named a member

of the Institut de France - third class

for "literature and fine arts," sixth

section, "sculpture" - by order of the

Directoire, dated 20 Nov. 1795 (Lapauze

1903, p. LXXVI; BMV, F 946, no.io bis;

Bonnaire 1937-1947, vol. i, preface;

Réau 1964,1:33).

1796

Salon —Houdon exhibits two works,

a small marble statue of the Frileuse and

a terracotta bust of Claude-Emmanuel

de Pastoret.

Jan. — Houdon ships the statue of

Washington to Richmond, Virginia, in

three crates: one for the marble statue;

two for the pedestal. The total weight is

36,000 pounds (Réau 1964,1:62).

22 Feb. — Houdon regularly attends

meetings at the Institut. For the

instruction of sculpture students he

donates six casts after antique torsos,

several heads, masks, antique feet,

and hands, a cadaver, and heads cast

after nature (Bonnaire 1937-1947,

1:9; Reau 1964,1:32).

27 July—Houdon is forced to leave

the studio at the Bibliothèque du Roi

that he has occupied since 1775. He

protests the move, which requires

him to sell some of his works, and

receives in exchange a location in the

Salle du Zodiaque, which he uses

until his death in 1828 (Montaiglon

and Duplessis 1855, 39^~399)-

27 Jan.—At a meeting of a fine arts class

at the Académie des Beaux-Arts Houdon

announces that he had invented an

instrument to be used to facilitate the

study of drawing before that of the

painter Bachelier. An investigation

concludes that the instruments are

different (Bonnaire 1937-1947,1:44).

1798

Houdon does not exhibit at the

Salon of 1798 but does exhibit at the

Salon de l'Elysée, nos. 83, 91, 92

(Réau 1964,1:102).

3 Feb. — Houdon gives advice on the

feasibility of restoring several plaster

casts of antique figures at the Ecole

nationale de peinture et de sculpture

(Bibliothèque d'art et d'archéologie,

Jacques Doucet, carton 101).

Six statues of Greek and Roman

legislators are commissioned to be

placed in the niches of the Tribune of

the 500. After the fall of the Directoire,

the Senate adopts the same program

but enlarges it to include twenty-eight

statues. Houdon is asked to execute

that of Cicero.

1799

Houdon does not exhibit at the Salon.

2 Mar. — Moniteur universel announces

that many artists, including sculptors

Houdon, Jean-Guillaume Moitte,

Augustin Pajou, Antoine-Denis

Chaudet, and François-Frédéric Lemot,

have presented a petition to the

minister of the interior requesting that

all public sculpture, painting, and

architecture projects for the Directoire

be awarded not by favor, but through

official competition.

1800

Salon—Houdon exhibits several

marble and plaster busts.

1801

Salon—Houdon exhibits several busts.

22 Aug.—The government orders all

occupants of the Louvre to leave

their apartments before 22 Nov. 1802,

though the time limit is extended.

Houdon is relocated to the College des

Quatre Nations (Institut de France).

He is given an apartment on the second

floor in the west pavilion; his studio is

on the ground floor in the east pavilion

(Bonnaire 1937-1947, 3:13).

1802

Salon—Houdon exhibits a small

statue of La Frileuse, a bronze of

Diana the Huntress, marble busts of

d'Alembert and Barthélémy, and plasters of Dorothea von Rodde-Schlôzer

and others.

352

1795 1797
ABBREVIATE D CHRONOLOG Y

6 Jan. — Moniteur universel announces

that the terracotta of Houdoris Seated

Voltaire has been purchased by the

Société des Beaux-Arts, Montpellier.

23 Jan.—The academies are reformed,

grouped according to the five classes at

the Institut.

18 Dec. — Houdon is named chevalier

of the Legion of Honor (founded 19

May 1802) (Archives de la Grande

chancellerie; Réau 1964,1:34).

1804

Salon—Houdon exhibits several busts,

including Robert Fulton and Joel

Barlow, and the plaster statue of Cicero.

2i Mar. —Robert Livingston, American

ambassador to France, approaches

Houdon about the commission of a

bronze equestrian statue of George

Washington by the U.S. Congress.

Houdon requires 600,000 francs, but

the project is abandoned for lack of

funds (BMV, F 946, nos. 72,75,76).

23 Sept. — Houdon is commissioned to

create a colossal bronze statue of

Napoleon to be placed atop a column at

Boulogne-sur-Mer; Moitte receives the

commission for bronze reliefs on the

pedestal. Houdon's model is completed

in 1806, and M. Getty casts it in 1812,

but the statue is never installed. After

1815 it is melted down and the bronze

used by Lemot for the statue of Henri

IV on the Pont Neuf (BMV, F 946, nos.

132-219; Monuments des victoires et

conquêtes des français de 1792 à 1815

[Paris, n.d.], p. 218; Réau 1964,1:72).

1805

5 Jan. — Houdon is named professor at

the Ecole spéciale de peinture et de

sculpture (Bonnaire 1937-1947, 2:299;

AN, AJ 52441; Journal de Paris, 18

Pluviôse an XIII; Moniteur universel, 17

Pluviôse an XIII).

9 Feb. — Houdon is named "professor

rector" at the Ecole spéciale (BMV, F

946, no. 22).

ii Apr. — Napoleon awards Houdon a

gold medal in recognition of his contribution to the Salon of 1804 (BMV, F

946, no. 19).

30 Sept. — Marriage of Sabine Houdon

to Henry-Jean Pineu-Duval, employee

of the interior ministry (BMV, F 945,

nos. 43-44; Réau 1964,1:34).

1806

Salon—Houdon exhibits busts of Napoleon and Josephine, a marble bust of

Dorothea von Rodde-Schlozer, and others.

3 Apr. — Houdon receives an imperial

order for a statue of BarthélémyCatherine Joubert, to be finished for the

Salon of 1808; it is not delivered until

the Salon of 1812 (BMV, F 946, no. 235;

Vivant Denon [éd. 1999], no. 857;

Réau 1964,1:72).

25 Sept. — Marriage of Anne-Ange

Houdon to Jean-Baptiste-Esprit Pelage

Louyer de Villermay, a medical doctor

(BMV, F 945, no. 20 ; Réau 1964,1:34).

1808

Salon—Houdon exhibits the marble

portraits of Napoleon and Josephine.

24 Sept. — Henry-Joseph Rutxhiel, one

of Houdon's students, receives first

prize in sculpture from the Académie

(Bonnaire 1937-1947, 3:186).

2i Nov. — Notorized document signed

before maître Trutat, notary in Paris,

confirms the personal fortune of

Houdon, "owner of buildings and of

permanent income from the government, shares in the Banque de France,

the annual income from which exceeds

by a great deal 3000 francs" (AN, MC,

étude LVIII, 1. 641; BMV, F 946, no. 16;

Réau 1964,1:34).

1809

28 Jan. — Houdon is named chevalier

of the Empire.

1810

Salon—Houdon does not exhibit.

27 Oct. —Marriage of AntoinetteClaude Houdon and Désiré-Raoul

Rochette, professor agrégé at the Lycée

impérial, later a member of the Institut,

chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and

curator of antique medals at the

Bibliothèque royale (Réau 1964,1:34).

1812

Salon—Houdon exhibits the marble

statue of Joubert, the marble statue of

Voltaire for the Panthéon, and a plaster

bust of the comte Boissy d'Anglas.

13 June—Académie des Beaux Arts

names Houdon, Lemot, Dejoux, Pierre

Cartellier, and François-André Vincent

as judges for Joseph Chinard's project for

a colossal statue at Marseilles (Jean-Michel

Léniaud, Procès-verbaux de l'Académie

des Beaux-Arts [Paris, 2001], 1:148).

353

1803
2i Dec. —Journal de l'Empire announces

that Houdon's colossal statue of

Napoleon for Boulogne-sur-Mer has

just been successfully cast in bronze in

one piece at the foundry in the

faubourg du Roule by M. Getty.

1813

25 Sept. — Jean-Jacques Flatters de

Crevelt, another of Houdon's students,

receives second prize in sculpture

(Léniaud 2001,1:233).

1814

Alexander I visits Houdon's studio

and commissions his bust in marble

(Mercure de France, Apr. 1814; Réau

1964,1:92).

Salon—Houdon participates for

thelast time, exhibiting a bust of the

Russian emperor Alexander I.

1815

15 Sept. — Frederick William III, king

of Prussia, visits Houdon's studio and

especially admires a bust of Molière

(Moniteur universel, 18 Sept., p. 1032)

1816

lo Feb. — Royal decree is given to decorate the bridge of Louis XVI with twelve

colossal statues. Houdon is given the

figure of Chevalier Pierre-Terrail Bayard

but declines the commission in view of

his great age. Antoine Moutoni takes it

instead (BMV, F 946, no. 240; Moniteur

universel, 18 Feb. 1816,181).

1818

2 Apr. — Houdon sells to Anselme

Lesourd and François Périac, a masonry

contractor, the house, land, and

outbuildings he owns at 76 faubourg

du Roule. On 14 June 1822 he sells the

house he owns at 74 faubourg du Roule

(AN, MC, étude LXX, 1. 900).

1823

22 Feb. —Death of Mme Houdon, at

the Palais de l'Institut; her estate is

dispersed by maître Agasse, notary in

Paris, 12 Mar. 1823 (BMV, F 945, no. 5).

Houdon is named emeritus professor

at the Académie royale (Archives de

l'Ecole nationale des beaux-arts, on

deposit at AN, AJ 52441; Labat-Poussin

1998, 52).

1828

15 July—Death of Jean-Antoine Houdon,

aged 88, at the Palais de l'Institut

(BMV, F 945, no. 4; Réau 1964,1:36).

15-17 Dec. — Posthumous sale of the

contents of Houdon's studio at the

request of his three daughters. The

introduction to the catalogue is written

by Raoul Rochette.

354
Appendix

Etat des choses renfermées dans les caisses envoyées à son

Altesse Monseigneur le Duc de Saxe Gotha

(Forschungsbibliothek Gotha, Chart A 712, fols. 8r-i4r)

1 Je rrietois proposé de mettre un ordre intelligible et abrégé,

2 pour reconnoitre chaque chose sur le champ, par le moyen

3 des numéros mis sur chaque objet, et placés pareillement à

4 chacun des articles, mais, voyant que la pluspart s'en alloient

5 en posant les objets dans la Caisse, je n'ai pas continué.

6 Comme Son Altesse fait cas des chœfs d'oeuvre en tout

7 genre, je lui envoyé, sans être reparé le Morphé qui à été

s exposé au salon dernier, lequel peut servir d'exemple à tous

9 les mouleurs, je l'envoyé, tel, à son Altesse, pour juger par

10 elle même: de la délicatesse des Contures des entre deux

11 de chaque pièce, du peu de défectuosité à reparer, il est

12 rare de voir un moule aussy bien fait, la qualité du plâtre

is peut y contribuer beaucoup, ainsi que l'habileté du

H mouleur qui, consiste à bien juger la quantité des pièces

is nécessaires ' et les placer de façon à pouvoir être enlevé

16 sans rupture, et à n'en pas mettre plus qu'il ne faut, je crois

17 que le nombre, se monte à peu près à deux cents: d'autres,

is en auroit pu mettre mille, il à fallu neammoins pour le

19 mouler aussy bien qu'il est, couper le Modèle en onze

20 morceaux, faire un moule de chaque, couler ensuite dans

21 tous ces moules, pour n'en faire qu'n, tel que, votre Altesse,

22 le voit, je crois devoir prévenir, que l'on use de précaution

23 quand on déballera: cela aura acquis une certaine valeur

24 bien que ce ne soit que de plâtre, par la raison seule, du

25 prix du transport, la grande caisse, contient principalement

26 le Morphé, et d'autres choses dans les vuides qu'il occa27 sione. après l'avoir rempli et fermé à [fol. 8v] demeure, on

28 l'a retournée sans dessus dessous, pour insérer d'autres

29 objets, dans le creux de la plinthe de cette figure, elle

30 demande d'autant plus de ménagements, que toutes les

31 parties en sont creuses, même les ailes, on doit la remuer,

32 transporter, et manier, par le bas de la plinthe, dans la cas

33 ou il se trouveroit quelque chose de cassé, et les ruptures

34 nettes, cest à dire, sans qu'il y ait rien de réduit en poudre,

35 et que l'on eût envie de voir le tout reuny: sans avoir recours

36 à un Sculpteur de profession, il suffiroit d'appliquer un

37 peu de blanc de plomb, tel qu'il se trouve chez le marchand

38 de couleur, [disposé pour peindre] le broyer avec un peu

39 d'huile grasse, et en appliquer sur chacune des parties à

40 rejoindre, il faut un peu d'attention, vu que cela demande

41 du temps pour s'affermir, et soutenir les morceaux qui

42 seroient en l'air, pour éviter la rupture, je crois qu'il con43 viendroit d'ouvrir la caisse par dessus; ensuite oter la

44 Scieure qui est à hauteur de la largeur de la première

45 planche crainte d'offencer les parties qui seront ça et la

46 sous la main, ensuite scier cette planche aux deux extrem47 ités, jusq'u à une autre assise; et enlever les objets, Les

48 quels vraisemblablement se découvriront deux mêmes.

49 Un plâtre de mon Ecorché grand comme nature, placé

so dans la seconde grande caisse, il n'y à que le bras droit qui

si n'est pas joint au reste du corps, il est placé dans la grande,

52 et exige du soin pour le découvrir, vu que la main est

53 ouverte, et que les doigts se trouvent isolés, cette figure

54 pour être bien d'aplomb demande à être renversée un peu

55 en arrière, si quelques Chirurgiens habiles trouvoit à redire

56 sur cet ouvrage, je n'en seroit point surpris, malgré que

57 tous ceux à qui je l'ai fait voir à Rome comme icy, m'ayent

58 parus être très Satisfaits, de certains que je forçai à y trou59 ver à redire; persuadé que les hommes ne voyent pas les

60 uns comme les autres, me disent, qu'ils desiroient telle

61 chose dans telle et telle partie, mais après leur avoir dit,

62 [fol. 9r] que j'avois fait cet ouvrage pour apprendre aux

355
63 artistes, d'où provient la correction du dessein, et com64 ment on y peut parvenir, ils ne sçavoient plus que me dire,

65 ni s'ils avoient eu raison de me critiquer, voila ce que pro66 duit l'ignorance, les Chirurgiens, tels habïles qu'ils soient,

67 ne sont point dessinateurs: et les desssinateurs, ne sont

68 point Chirurgiens, l'habile Chirurgien selon moi, doit

69 étudier la nature, telle défectueuse quelle puisse se ren70 contrer, pour pouvoir remédier à chaque infirmité, mais

71 nous, nous devons l'etudier autrement, cest la nature dans

72 toute sa noblesse, sa parfaite santé, que nous recherchons;

73 ou si non, nous ne sommes, que de chetifs imitateurs, je

74 compare celui qui imite la Nature telle quelle se rencontre

75 journellement, à un Singe bien organisé, mais celui qui

76 sçait faire un choix, et qui y réussit, approche bien selon

77 moi de ce qu'il y à de plus parfait, et s'élève lame, voila

78 mon ambition, et à quoi j'etente.

79 Dans une Boëte, sous la tête de cet Ecorché, est là Copie

so d'un petit Cheval de même nature, dont l'original est en

si Bronze du double de grandeur, dans la villa del signor Duca

82 Mattei: s'il n'est pas antique il est ancien et selon moi fort

83 beau, des Ecuyers y trouvent des défauts; pour moi, je ne

84 m'y connois pas assez pour acquiescer aux éloges, ni aux

85 blâmes, mais, si j'avois à faire une statue Equestre, je

86 voudrois connoitre cet animal, aussi profondement que je

87 me flate de connoitre l'homme, ce plâtre m à été donné.

ss Comme j'occupe maintenant, les Artelliers de la Ville,

89 et qu'il s y trouve encore le creux de la Statue de Louis

90 Quinze: je vais peut-être selon le prix ou cela se montera,

91 faire couler par ordre de Mr. le Prévost des Marchands, un

92 plâtre de cette statue avant qu'on en détruise le moule, ce

93 morceau, ornera beaucoup l'intérieur de mon Attellier.

94 On trouvera une petite figure renfermée dans une

95 Caisse, laquelle est insérée dans la grande, représentant

96 Luperque prêtre, qui après avoir sacrifié au Dieu Pan, couroit

97 nud, et frapoit toutes les femmes de sa Courrai, pour les

98 [fol. 9v] rendre fécondes, les femmes enceintes, recevoient

99 aussy de ces coups, espérants d'accoucher heureusement.

100 ce plâtre est celui sur lequel, j'ai été agrée, il à été exposé

101 au Salon de 1769.

102 Un Médaillon du plus saillant possible, représentant la

103 tête del Minerve, copiée D'après l'antique, recorrigé par moi.

104 La tête d'Alexandre composé par moi faisant pendant

ios á celle de Minerve, j'ai ces deux têtes chez moi, ébauchées

106 en marbre, je ne conte les finir, que quand l'occasion de

107 les placer se présentera.

ios Le portrait d Homère, sera facile à reconnoitre, si le

109 numéro 4... y est encore, autrement, on le reconnoitra à

110 la quantité des cheveux; Lesquels sont ceints d'une espèce

ni de cordon, il n'est fait que jusq'ua la fosette du Col. il ne m'a

112 coûté, que la valeur du plâtre dont il est fait, j'at levé les

113 plus grosses défectuosités que le moule y avoit laissé.

lu Celui de Demosthenes ce celebre orateur grec, qui est

us du même prix, si le numéro 5... n'y est plus, on peut le

116 reconnoitre aisément, il est en Buste, mais sans Epaules:

117 il à la tête tournée de gauche à droite, Les cheveux courts,

us arrangés par simetrie, et sans légèreté, il à je ne sçais quoi,

119 qui lui passe de derrière en devant, sur le bas de Col, du

120 coté droit.

121 Caracalla qui n'a pas plus coûté, doit avoir le numéro

122 6.. au reste il est facile de le connoitre à ses sourcils fron123 ces, ses petits cheveux bouclés, sa barbe crépue, et son

124 manteau à la Romaine, tenu par un bouton sur l'Epaule

125 droite, la tête de cet Empereur, etoit mal organisée, mais

126 le dessein extérieure me plait Singulièrement. L'original

127 qui est de toute beauté, se trouve dans le palais pharnese

us à Rome.

129 Le pied de la venus de Medicis, tel que je l'ai pu avoir à

130 Rome, je pense qu'il ne sera pas indiffèrent, relativement

131 aux reflexions que nous fimes eu égard à nos chaussures

132 qui gâtent nos pieds: et plus particulièrement celles des

133 femmes, cest une beauté que d'avoir un petit pied, de l'avoir

134 [fol. lor] trop petit, est un défaut, comme de l'avoir trop

135 grand, nos parisiennes trouvent le pied de la venus bien

136 gros, relativement au leur mais le leur aux yeux des per137 sannes, doit paroitre de même, puisquelles se le gâtent au

138 point quelles ne peuvent pas s'en servir.

139 je ne trouve rien de si ridicule, que les chaussures de

HO nos dames, et le Rouge apliqué sur les joues; comme si cela

HI etoit une mouche, j'ai été tenté mille fois, de faire l'éloge de

142 la Cour de Gotha à cet égard, mais la crainte de paroitre con143 traire aux sentiments de nos dames, m'a fait garder le silence.

144 Les femmes, qui se gâtent les pieds et la taille ainsi

us que la figure, non plus que celles qui portent de grands

146 fardeaux, ne sont pas plus propres à nous servir de mo147 dele, l'une que l'autre, l'une parcequelle est trop efféminée,

us gâtée par la peinture quelle s'aplique depuis la pointe des

149 cheveux jusq'ua la gorge. Le front est epilé, de maniere á

150 former sept pointes; les Sourcils sont taillés, cirés, peignés.

151 Les joues, grand Dieu, vous le scavez. le blanc, le Rouge,

152 tout y entre. Les oreilles sont gâtées par la Coëffure de nuit;

356
APPENDIX

153 le jour, par les énormes Boudes d'oreille, depuis que Quan154 tité d'oreilles, se trouvent fendues depuis le trou, jusq'ua

155 son extrémité inférieure, par le poids des boucles; on à

156 trouvé moyen de les suspendre, et de les appuier sans

is? quelles passent au travers de l'oreille, il faut avouer que

158 paris est charmant pour 1 industrie, j'ai plusieurs de mes

159 amis, qui n'ayant point de cheveux, s'en sont fait implanter

160 l'un après l'autre; sans tissu et sans trame dans la tête, le

loi col, est souvent gâté par les colliers trop serrés. La taille,

162 par les maudits corps. Les genoux, dessus ou dessous, par

163 les jarretières quelque fois mêmes tous les deux, parceque

164 l'un, contribue à l'autre. Les pieds, par la Chaussure, et l'on

165 se plaint journellement des corps aux pieds, et des duril166 Ions qui ne proviennent que de la.

167 La dernière est une femme qui par de pénibles travaux

168 perd de son caractère féminin, mais moi, homme, et même

169 femme, j'aimerois [fol. lov] mieux à cela près de la condi170 tion, être sortis des flancs de cette dernière, j'esperrois

171 avoir une santé plus robuste, je veux donc donner à votre

172 Altesse, un Exemple d'un pied généralement beau, c'est

173 un pied ni trop petit, ny trop grand, cest la forme d'un pied

174 qui n'a jamais porté chaussure, j'y trouve quelque chose à

175 désirer, mais je n'ose le dire, peut être seroit il moins bien,

176 s'il etoit comme je le désire.

177 Pour donner, à votre Altesse, une idée de lexcês de nos

178 coëfrures, je lui envoyé 4... médiocres Estampes qui courent

179 les Rues, et dont la moins mauvaise à mon avis, est celle

180 qui représente une demoiselle allant à l'Opéra, et qui

181 accroche en passant dans la Rue, Le Reverbere, cest autant

182 de Caricatures; mais Si cela est outré, les vrayes coëffures

183 ne sont pas moins ridicules, je pardonnerois de donner

184 aux cheveux, tous les plis et replis possibles, pourvu que

185 cela fut à l'avantage de la personne, cest une chose qui peut

186 soufrir tous nos caprices mais il n'en est pas de même, de

187 la taille fine et déliée, que je reproche au critique de n'avoir

188 pas outré. Les enfants qui proviennent de ces tailles, peuvent

189 s'en ressentir. Les femmes, n'ont dautres dessein que de

190 plaire à leurs maris, qui ne connoissent point la belle

191 nature, ils veulent quand leurs femmes viennent au monde

192 telles quelles doivent être, Les rendre par leurs corps

193 comme des fourmies, presque séparées par la moitié, de

194 certains, s'imaginent n'avoir pas les pieds gâtés, parcequ'ils

195 n'ont point, disent ils, les doigts chevauchés l'un sur l'autre.

196 s'ils avoient le pouce de la main apuié et collé le long du

197 premier doigt; et que les autres se trouvassent de même

198 sans avoir la liberté de leurs mouvements, ils ne croiraient

199 point avoir la main bien faite, il en est du pied, comme de

200 la main, le pouce est toujours écarté des autres doigts, c'est

201 lordre de la nature libre: les autres doigts ainsi que le pouce,

202 servent par Leur Ecart, à rappeller notre aplomb au besoin.

203 Les femmes n'auroient pas tant de mérite à savoir marcher,

204 si elles alloient pieds nuds ou chaussures plates, je les trouve

205 aussy adroites que les danseurs de Corde, il est naturel

206 de danser sur la Corde, mais cela n'est pas ordinaire, les

207 femmes ont contractés ces habitudes dès Le Bas âge.

208 [fol. nr] Bien des personnes qui trouvoient du ridicule à

209 ma chaussure ont changés d'avis, sur une légère explication.

210 plusieurs même d'entre elles, se font faire des Souliers à ma

211 mode, je demandai un jour a M Diderot à l'égard des

212 Dames, ce qu'il pensoit des tailles fines, ce que j'en pense,

213 me dit il, vous ignorez donc la différence que je fais entre

214 les françaises, et les Italiennes. Les Italiennes, sont faites

215 pour faire des Enfants, et les nôtres pour être.... il me le dit

216 tout franc, votre Altesse, doit le reconnoitre, cest un homme

217 bouillant, tout de flamme, pour jouir, dit il, voila la différence

218 que je fais.

219 M'étant proposé d'expliquer ceque cest q'un Basrelief,

220 j'en envoyé. 5. sous le numéro. 9... s'il y est encore. On

221 nomme basrelief Généralement toute Sculpture appliqué

222 sur un fond, et qui n'est pas parfaitement isolée, il est

223 plusieurs Sortes de Basrelief. basrelief de demi Bosse, tel

224 que les têtes de Minerve et d'Alexandre. Bosse signifie une

225 chose eminente. Rond de Bosse, est une chose visible sur

226 tous sens, tels sont le Morphé, La tête de venus, celle

227 d'homere, MEcorchè, le pied de la Venus &c. le basrelief est

228 généralement moins Saillant que la demie bosse, le Bas229 relief extrêmement bas, est ce que l'on peut voir, dans les

230 4... basreliefs qui représentent les 4... parties du Monde.

231 celui oval et de forme oblongue, représente Louis XIVsous

232 la figure d'apollon sur un Char parcourant les airs, ces bas233 reliefs dit on faisoient partie de la Vaiselle de ce Roy. il n'en

234 reste plus que des cuivres, appartenants à un de mes amis,

235 Mr* Duvivier Graveur des Médailles du Roy; et des plâtres,

236 tels que, votre Altesse, peut les voir, cela me paroit autant

237 de chefs d'oeuvres dans le genre d'orfèvrerie, ils furent

238 exécutés par Le Celebre Balin orfèvre du Roy.

239 Basrelief extrêmement bas, tel que la tête de Minerve,

240 mise sous verre avec Bordure; pour d'orner un certain

241 relief, et montrer une [Bordure] suivant mon goût, j'avois

242 pris la Mesure du Médaillon, de Madame La Duchesse,

357
243 pour en faire un qui convint un peu mieux, que celle que

244 j'ai laissé sans être terminé, mais je l'ai perdu en route, si

245 la bordure que j'envoyé n'alloit pas bien, on pourroit oter

246 ou remettre du plâtre au portrait; de façon qu'étant reunis,

247 ils semblent faits l'un pour l'autre, ces bordures vu mon

44- S 248 Economie, ne m'ont coûté que ijow

 2 ... j'ai imaginé de

249 faire cette tête avec si peu de saillie, pour [fol. nv] sur250 monter une Difficulté, qui n'est pas peu de Chose, il faut

251 avec aussy peu de relief, faire sentir que l'objet représenté,

252 est rond, et pour se le persuader; il faut (soit que la lumière,

253 soit naturelle ou artificielle,) placer l'ouvrage un peu plus

254 ou moins haut, plus ou moins de Coté, comme j'ai eu

255 l'honneur de \efaire observer à son Altesse, à l'égard des por256 traits, que j'ai eu l'avantage de faire à Gotha, il faut pareille257 ment s'écarter à une Distance convenable, la Sculpture

258 bien Eclairée, est bien différente de celle qui ne l'est pas.

259 Le fameux Apollon du Vatican, ne m'en impose pas, Eclairé

260 en dessous, je le regarde comme une Statue, mais Eclairé

261 autrement, j'oublie la matière dont il est fait, et ne vois en

262 lui q'un Dieu, telle est l'impression qu'il m'a fait, et qu'il doit

263 faire à tous Connoisseurs, particulièrement quand il se

264 trouve recevoir la lumière, dans le point de perfection, la

265 nature entière à une heure plus favorable pour être vue. je

266 n'oublirai jamais le Château de Gotha, d'où je decouvrois

267 une grande partie de Ciel et de terre, ce qui m'autorise à

268 avancer cela. La petite tête de Minerve, ainsi que le Morfé

269 et les ouvrages de M ' Doëll, sont de Talque, le plâtre le

270 plus beau et le plus fin que nous ayons.

271 Les basreliefs Ronds ou ovales, qui ne passent point

272 une certaine grandeur, se nomment Médaillons, autrement,

273 basreliefs saillants ou non Saillants, de telle ou telle

274 grandeur, demie Bosse ou demi Relief. Les copies de M

275 Doëll, envoyées à son Altesse, feront voir les progrès que

276 fait son Elevé, et quel est l'usage qu'il fait de son temps, il

277 n'est pas possible de faire plus de progrès: je supplie, son

278 Altesse, de ne lui point faire connoitre tout le bien que je

279 dis et espère de lui; car, les jeunes gens croyent Scavoir dès

280 l'instant qu'ils commencent, il est à désirer que, votre

281 Altesse, exige de lui pour preuve de sa capacité, qu'il gagne

282 une Médaille au Concours, il ne demande pas mieux, je

283 l'ai même trouvé occupé à cela, je lui ai fait retirer sa figure,

284 et lui dis, qu'il n'etoit pas assez fort, qu'il ne falloit pas

285 fatiguer les yeux des juges, que cela ne donnoit pas une

286 bonne opinion, qu'il falloit se rendre capable, et prendre

287 bien ses mesures pour entrer en lice, et l'emporter sur les

288 autres, je n'exige de lui que ce que j'ai fait, sans vouloir me

289 donner pour exemple, ensuite, il fera plus, je ne suis pas

290 le premier, qui aurai fait plus habile que soi. il m'a dit, qu'il

291 n'avoit travaillé qu'assis à Gotha: mais icy, quand je le ver292 ray ce sera pour la première fois.

293 Les Copies de l'hercule et de l'Ecorchè qu'il à fait sont

294 des Basreliefs d'après la Bosse, ou figures isolées.

295 Le nom de Pandore que l'on donne à Rome à la Vestale

296 que j'ai faite d'après le Marbre qui est au Capitol plus grand

297 que [fol. i2r] nature, ne me paroit pas Convenable, vu que

298 le Vase qu'elle tient, ne ressemble point à la Boëte des Des299 tins, j'ignore à quoi peut servir le trou situé au fond du

300 vase; peut être est il Moderne, elle est haute de 20. à 22..

301 pouces, droite, elle tient son Vase à deux mains.

302 La tête d'un amour courronnè de Myrthe, composé

303 par moi.

304 Le Couple amoureux ou baiser réciproque, cest un

305 Grouppe de deux têtes, de la grosseur de demi nature, ces

306 têtes sont réunies de manière qu'elles posent sur un seul

307 pied. La tête de Méduse, apliqué sur un fond Rond de.. 6..

308 pouces de Diamètre, cette idée est prise d'après l'antique,

309 sur la poitrine d'un Guerrier qui est en Buste au Capitol,

310 mais elle n'y est que heurtée, presque tous les Artistes se

311 la sont procurée, elle à été employée dans maintes occa312 sions, particulièrement en Architecture, et en décorations.

313 Dans la moyenne Caisse, comme dans la grande, s'est

314 trouvé plus de vuide que je n'imaginois. j'ai autant aimé y

315 mettre de mes plâtres, que de la Sciure de Bois, cest

316 pourquoi le saint Bruno qui à été exposé au Salon il y à. 3.

317 ans, s'y trouve, ainsi q'une petite prêtresse de Diane, de

318 Basrelief.

319 Un buste antique, dont je ne Scais pas le nom, que je

320 trouve fort beau, contenu dans la Caisse de l'Ecorchè, il est

321 drapé sur la poitrine, à les Cheveux extrêmement Courts, si

322 son Altesse vouloit le reconnoitre par le moyen des Souffres,

323 Médailles ou Gravures, je lui donnerais pour indice, que

324 j'ai vu a Rome dans le palais de france notre Académie, un

325 plâtre de cette tête exécutée en buste jusqu'à la Ceinture,

326 jointe à une autre représentant une femme qui lui donne

327 la main, cest vraisemblablement Louis XIV qui eu fit faire

328 le Creux en même temps que ceux qui sont à nos acade329 mies de Rome et de Paris, ils doivent représenter un

330 Mariage à l'usage des anciens, j'ignore ou en est le Marbre.

331 Une tête d'Etude, qu'on peut nommer Vestale, elle à

332 un voile sur la tête à été composée et faite à Rome, elle

358
APPENDI X

333 est dans mon Attellier; ébauchée en Marbre, ainsi que la

334 tête suivante.

335 Une tête d'étude du S Jean que je devois exécuter en

336 face du S Bruno, que j'ai fait en Marbre dans L'église des

337 Chartreux de Rome, cette tête à été vue par le public d'un

338 oeil favorable à l'avant dernier Salon. La manière dont je l'ai

339 faite, m'a été [fol. i2v] avantageuse, ayant été faire des Sta340 tions d'Artiste, à l'église de S Pierre de Rome, je trouvai

341 une Espèce d'hermite vivant parmi le peuple, pieds nuds,

342 vêtu d'une Espèce de Robe de Capucîn, et ayant une tête

343 qui me convenoit assez, cet homme singulier, demande

344 l'aumône dans les Rues, et du trop de ce qu'il lui faut pour

345 vivre, il fait la Charité, il se rend à certaines heures et cer346 tains jours de la Semaine à S Pierre, pour instruire quan347 rite d'Enfants des deux Sexes, je l'accostai au sortir de la,

348 et lui proposai de me servir de Modèle pour la tête Seule349 ment, il n'y eût ni or, ni argent, ni même prières, qui

350 pussent le fléchir, il me dit, qu'il n'etois pas digne de servir

351 de Modèle de saint, je projettai de m'en Servir, sans lui

352 avoir d'Obligation, je le considérai bien et l'inculquai dans

353 ma tête; le mieux qu'il me fut possible, je m'en vins à

354 l'Académie qui est fort éloignée de S Pierre, et je façonnai

355 une masse de terre, deja préparée à ce Dessein, je retour356 nai le lendemain et Surlendemain, pour Le Revoir, et ter357 minai ma tête en effet sans lui avoir d'obligation, je la

358 montrai à mon supérieur et à mes Confrères qui la trouv359 erent très bien, mais il est certains Esprits, qui quoique

360 Contents, désirent ce qu'ils ne voyent pas. un ou d'eux

361 d'entre eux, me disent, quelle seroit encore mieux, s'il y

362 avoit plus de feu dame, en un mot plus d'action, mais ne

363 croyant pas mieux faire, je balançai beaucoup sur ce que

364 je ferois. je desirois Satisfaire tout le monde, mais je craig365 nois aussy de défaire ce que j'avoue actuellement avoir

366 jamais fait de mieux. Les Compliments que j'en ai reçus

367 publiquement au Salon, me confirment dans mon Opin368 ion. pour n'avoir point de reproches à me faire, je la fis

369 mouler; [et] sur la terre, je fis ce que l'on desiroit. Les deux

370 têtes placées l'une auprès de l'autre, furent trouvées gen371 eralement bien, mais le plus grand nombre fut pour la pre372 miere. peu s'en fallut, que pour vouloir trop bien faire, je

373 ne gâta une bonne tête, si j'en eus pris le parti de la con374 server par le moyen du Moule. La pluspart de mes ouvrages

375 ne sont pas unies, cela vient de ce que je ne juge pas à pro376 pos de vernir une Chose qui n'est pas dans la Dernière

377 [fol. ly] perfection, j'ai dit à M ' Doêîl, que de rendre ses

378 ouvrages luisants, cetoit cacher sous un verni ses défauts

379 aux yeux des gens non Connoisseurs, de plus, les chairs,

380 ainsi que quantité d'autres choses, ne sont point lises, polies,

381 et luisantes, quand cela arrive, cest par une transpiration

382 de grêce, qui répand une huile sur la Phisionomie, qui n'est

383 pas un agrément, cette tête, se trouve aussy dans la Caisse

384 de l'Ecorchè. le pied qui la supporte, est à part, il suffira

385 de poser l'un sur l'autre, et de mettre du plâtre par der386 riere, avec un Morceau de fer implanté dans le pied, avant

387 d'y ajouter le plâtre, et l'autre extrémité du fer, appuiee sur

388 le derrière du bas de la tête.

389 La tête de La Venus, tel que nous l'avons icy maintenant

390 elle n'est pas comparable à celle que, votre altesse, à acheté

391 à quelques distances de Gotha, mais l'ayant réparé du mieux

392 qu'il m'a été possible, elle à acquis un Degré de blancheur

393 assez égal. Madame La Duchesse, désirant un plâtre de

394 cette tête, plus blanc, que ceux qui sont à Gotha, je lui envoyé

395 celui cy, avec le seul mérite de la Blancheur, je n'ai pu, faute

396 de temps, reparer les cheveux comme ils dévoient l'être.

397 Une petite Caisse d'environ. 6. pouces de long, con398 tenant deux petits oiseaux de terre cuite, que je desire pre399 senter, à Madame la Duchesse, j'ai éprouvé en les faisant,

400 qu'il etoit difficile avec une matière opaque d'une seule

401 Couleur, d'imiter la légèreté des plumes et du duvet, que

402 cette nature nous présente, je souhaite, que votre Altesse

403 y trouve quelques vérités.

404 La tête d'une femme defrescati, Ville distante de. 6.

405 Lieues de Rome, elle à été exposé à l'avant dernier salon,

406 et peut donner une idée des Coëffures d'Italie; non des

407 premières dames de Rome, qui adoptent les nôtres, et qui

408 pour la plus part, en outrent le Ridicule, j'aime cette espèce

409 de Coëffures, qui reporte tous les Cheveux en arrière, et

410 retenue ensuite par des Epingles d'or, d'Argent, et autre

411 matière, leur Coeffures de jour et de nuit, n'empêche point

412 les oreilles de croitre, selon le Cours de la nature, cette tête,

413 et celle de mon Ecorchè, ont les oreilles, comme on doit les

414 avoir généralement.

415 Une 3.erne [erased: Deuxième] caisse, d'environ trois

416 pieds contenant deux Bordures, l'une destinée pour le por417 trait, de Madame la Duchesse, ou celui que, votre Altesse

418 jugera à propos. L'autre contient Le Médaillon de Minerve.

419 [fol. i3v] Une tête en pastel, destinée à présenter, à votre

420 Altesse, une peinture fixée par M Loriot Grand Mecani421 tien. Elle desiroit Sçavoir, si l'on pouvoit passer la main

422 dessus, sans offencer et endommager; Elle peut se satis359
423 faire sur le portrait représentant M e Boucher, tenant une

424 Brochure à la main, Epouse de M Boucher, cy devant

425 premier Peintre du Roy. votre Altesse, peut faire toutes les

426 Epreuves quelle jugera à propos, attendu que ce pastel,

427 ainsi que ceux que j'y ai joint qui ne sont point fixés, sont

428 de peu de valeur, ces pastels ainsi que les desseins que j'ai

429 pris la liberté d'y joindre, sont également faits, par celle

430 qui veut bien faire ma Compagnie elle à le mérite, d'imiter

431 la manière de tous les maitres d'après les quels, la plus432 part de ces desseins la sont faits, elle veut bien malgré

433 ses occupations ordinaires, veiller sur ma maison, cette

434 compagne, est une de mes Soeurs.

435 Deux pastels mis sous verre, dont l'un est une vestale,

436 et l'autre deux Náyades.

437 Une Estampe représentant le triomphe de P... des438 sine d'après l'antique, j'en ai vu le camée en soufre, votre

439 Altesse, doit l'avoir dans sa Collection, mais le dessein

440 et l'Estampe ont été augmenté de plusieurs Episodes, c'est

441 M le Comte de Caylus, qui le fit graver; il y à neuf à dix ans.

442 j'ai eu la 5 Epreuve, avant que l'explication fut au bas. ce

443 qui prouve la certitude des premières Epreuves, je ne prétend

444 point, lui donner plus de valeur quelle n'en à, tout ce que je

445 sçais, cest qu'il y en à très peu d Exemplaires, j'ai inséré un

446 Recueil de vases tournés, dont l'auteur, ainsi que celui qui à

447 grave l'estampe de cidessus, m'ont faits présents.

448 La petite tête de S. Bruno, fondateur de lordre des Char449 treux, elle est en Buste, et moins incorrecte que celle qui

450 est sur le saint, cest pourquoi, je l'ai introduite, elle n'est

451 que de plâtre, revêtue d'une couleur de terre cuite à leau

452 et un peu de Gomme d'Arabie.

453 Un morceau de bois carè, de.. 8.. pouces de long, des454 tiné à enter le bras de l'Ecorché.

455 Autre petite Caisse, qui doit être dans la plus grande,

456 contenant des médailles que j'ai reçu de M. Duvivier. pour

457 les envoyer, à son Altesse, je les ai fait mettre sous verre,

458 pour la somme de 24 ... mon intention, en joignant ce cy,

459 est de donner une idée, de ce qui se fait a Paris, en ce genre

460 et faire connoitre le mérite de l'auteur, lui ayant fait voir

461 celle dont on ma honoré, il m'a dit, que Ton ne [fol. 141]

462 frappoit pas avec autant de neteté icy. cette Caisse, contient

463 deux Cadres remplies des Epreuves premières, en etain,

464 de différentes Médailles. L'un, du fameux Duvivier père,

465 Graveur Celebre dans ce genre; L'autre de M ' son fils, qui

466 se distingue beaucoup, et soutient l'honneur de son nom.

467 il m'en à fait présent, pour que j'aye l'honneur de vous les

468 offrir; ne doutant pas, quelles n'entrent parmi vos différents

469 morceaux de Curiosité, ce ne sont pas des suites de

470 médailles, mais, cest une Collection peut être des plus

471 belles, pour l'art et le goût.

472 vous remarquerez principalement dans le premier, La

473 Médaille du sacre de Louis XV et un S'Michel qui foudroyé

474 les Anges, gravée pour l'établissement d'un ordre de S '

475 Michel, par le Prince de Bavière, en.. 1722.. Les têtes de

476 M ' Le Maréchal de Villars, et de Mr- le Duc de Bourbon

477 avec leurs Revers, qui sont très distingués, et la figure

478 Equestre de louis XV.. posée à Bordeaux, en 1723.. il y à

479 aussy, différentes autres Médailles, de l'histoire du Roy de

480 .18.lignes de diamettre, de différentes dattes, et dont le

481 goût ma paru étonnant.

482 Le second Cadre, renferme la grande Médaille de la

483 figure Equestre de Louis XV.. faite pour la ville de paris;

484 et un revers particulier pour les six corps des Marchands.

485 plus, une tête du Roy habillé, faite il y à 5 ans, dont la

486 ressemblance etoit frapante, avec deux Revers singuliers

487 pour la délicatesse du travail, et la régularité des Bâtiments.

488 la tête d'Henri ..IV.. dont les Eloges multipliées, ont excité

489 M de la Rochelle, à proposer cette Médaille pour exciter à

490 le louer encore mieux, ce qui à reussy à Merveille, la Médaille

491 fondée par M ' le Duc de villars à Marseille, ou est son Buste,

492 à pour revers, un génie tenant des Couronnes pour recom493 penser l'Agriculture, le Commerce, et la navigation, une

494 autre fondé par la ville de Lyon pour le même objet, differ495 ents sujets de l'histoire de Louis XV.. et un jetton octogone,

496 suivant la nouvelle mode, représentant M ' l'Archêvesque

497 de Reims, avec son revers ouvrage pretieux. je souhaite que

498 ces Collections, soient du goût de, votre Altesse, et qu'elles

499 lui plaisent assez pour entrer dans son Cabinet.

360
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BSHAF Bulletin de la Société

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Starcky, Emmanuel, and Sophie Jugie.

L'Art des collections. Bicentenaire du

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon. Exh. cat.,

Musée des Beaux-Arts. Dijon, 2000.

Dijon and Orléans 1992

Portraits sculptés XVe-XVÏIÏe siècle.

Exh. cat., Musées des Beaux-Arts.

Dijon and Orléans, 1992.

Duisburg 1987

Von der Kunstkammer zum Muséum.

Plastik aus dem Schlossmuseum

Gotha/DDR. Exh. cat., Wilhelm Lehmbruck Muséum. Duisburg, 1987.

Duisburg 1989

Skulptur aus dem Louvre. 89 Werke des

Jranzôsischen Klassizismus 1770-1830,

Houdon entries by Guilhem Scherf.

Exh. cat., Wilhelm Lehmbruck

Muséum. Duisburg, 1989.

Frankfurt 1999-2000

Mehr Lient. Europa um 1770. Die

bildende Kunst der Aufklârung. Exh. cat.,

Stâdelsches Kunstinstitut; Stàdtische

Galerie; and Liebieghaus. Frankfurt,

1999-2000.

Gotha 1989

Skulptur aus dem Louvre: 89 Werke

des Jranzôsischen Klassizismus

1770-1830. Exh. cat., Museen

der Stadt. Gotha, 1989.

London 1932

Exhibition of French Art 1200-1900.

Exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts.

London, 1932.

London 1972

Hubert, Gérard. The Age of Neo-classicism. Exh. cat., The Royal Academy

and The Victoria £ Albert Museum.

London, 1972.

Monticello 1993

Stein, Susan R. The Worlds of Thomas

Jefferson at Monticello. Exh. cat., Thomas

Jefferson Memorial Foundation.

Monticello, 1993.

New York 1981

Jean-Antoine Houdon: Eight Portrait

Busts. Exh. cat., The Frick Collection.

New York, 1981.

New York 1999-2000

Baetjer, Katharine, and James David

Draper. "Only the Best": Masterpieces

of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum,

Lisbon. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan

Museum of Art. New York,

1999-2000.

Orléans 1876

Exposition rétrospective de Beaux-Arts.

Exh. cat., Halle Saint-Louis.

Orléans, 1876.

Paris 1865

Union Centrale des arts appliqués à

l'Industrie Musée rétrospectif. Exh. cat.,

Palais de l'Industrie. Paris, 1865.

Paris 1878

Exposition universelle. Galerie des

portraits nationaux, review by Henry

Jouin. Exh. cat., Palais du Trocadéro.

Paris, 1878.

Paris 1889

Exposition universelle de 1889. Catalogue

illustré des beaux arts 1789-1889.

Exh. cat., Palais du Champ-dé-Mars.

Paris, 1889.

Paris 1894

Marie Antoinette et son temps.

Preface by Germain Bapst. Exh. cat.,

Galerie Sedelmeyer. Paris, 1894.

Paris 19003

L'Art Jrançais des origines à la fin du XIX

siècle. Exh. cat., Exposition universelle.

Paris, 1900.

Paris i9oob

Exposition centennale de l'art français

de 1800 à 1889. Exh. cat., Grand Palais.

Paris, 1900.

Paris 190 oc

Seidel, Paul. Die Kunstsammlung

Friedrichs des Grossen aufder Panser

Weltausstellung 1900. Exh. cat., German

Pavilion of Exposition universelle.

Paris, 1900.

370
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París 1908

Cent pastels du XVIIIe siècle et bustes.

Exh. cat., Galerie Georges Petit.

Paris, 1908.

Paris 1928

Camoin, André. Exposition du

centenaire de Houdon. Exh. cat.,

Galerie Buvelot. Paris, 1928.

Paris 1937

Chefs à'œuvre de l'art français. Exh. cat.,

Palais national des arts. Paris, 1937.

Paris 1958

L'Art français et l'Europe aux XVIIe

et XVIIIe siècles. Exh. cat., Orangerie

des Tuileries. Paris, 1958.

Paris 1984-1985

Diderot et l'art de Boucher à David.

Les Salons, 1759-1781. Exh. cat.,

Hôtel de la Monnaie. Paris, 1984-1985.

Paris 1986

La France et la Russie au siècle des

lumières. Relations culturelles et artistiques

de la France et de la Russie au XVIIIe

siècle. Exh. cat., Galeries nationales du

Grand Palais. Paris, 1986.

Paris 1989

Gaborit, Jean-René. La Révolution

française et l'Europe 1789-1799. Exh.

cat., Galeries nationales du Grand

Palais. Paris, 1989.

Paris 1992

Poulet, Anne L, and Guilhem Scherf.

Clodion 1738-1814. Exh. cat., Musée du

Louvre. Paris, 1992.

Paris 1993-1994

Clair, Jean. L'Ame au corps. Arts et

sciences, 1793-1993. Exh. cat.,

Réunion des musées nationaux and

Galeries nationales du Grand Palais.

Paris, 1993-1994.

Paris 1994

Voltaire et l'Europe. Exh. cat.,

Bibliothèque Nationale and Monnaie

de Paris. Paris, 1994.

Paris 1999

Dupuy, Marie-Anne. Dominique Vivant

Denon, l'œil de Napoléon. Exh. cat.,

Musée du Louvre. Paris, 1999.

Paris, Salon cat.

Explication des peintures, sculptures et

gravures, de messieurs de l'Académie

royale [published to accompany each

Salon exhibition].

Paris and New York 1997-1998

Draper, James David, and Guilhem

Scherf. Pajou, sculpteur du Roi. Exh. cat.,

Musée du Louvre and The Metropolitan

Museum of Art. Paris and New York,

1997-1998.

Rheinsberg 1985

Rheinsberg, eine markische Residenz

des 18. Jahrhunderts. Exh. cat., Schloss

Rheinsberg. Rheinsberg, 1985. See also

the revised edition, Rheinsberg, 1990.

Rheinsberg 1994

Prinz Heinrich von Preufien in Bildnissen

seiner Zeit. Exh. cat., Schlofè Rheinsberg. Rheinsberg, 1994.

Rheinsberg 2002

Prinz Heinrich von Preufien. Ein

Europaer in Rheinsberg. Exh. cat.,

Stiftung Preuféische Schlôsser

und Garten Berlin-Brandenburg.

Rheinsberg, 2002.

Rouen 1977

Mouilleseaux, Jean Pierre. L'Ecorché.

Exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts.

Rouen, 1977.

Schwerin 2000

Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Jean-Antoine

Houdon. Vermachtnis der Aufklarung.

Exh. cat., Sammlung Staatliches

Muséum Schwerin. Schwerin, 2000.

Versailles 1928

Centenaire de].-A. Houdon, né à

Versailles. Exh. cat., Bibliothèque

municipale. Versailles, 1928.

Versailles 1937

Deux siècles d'histoire de France. Musée

national du château. Versailles, 1937.

Versailles 2001-2002

Picquenard, Thérèse. Louis-Simon

Boizot (1743-1809). Sculpteur du Roi

et directeur de l'atelier de sculpture à la

Manufacture de Sèvres. Exh. cat., Musée

Lambinet. Versailles, 2001-2002.

Washington 1976

Adams, William Howard, éd. The Eye

of Thomas Jefferson. Exh. cat., National

Gallery of Art. Washington, DC, 1976.

Worcester 1964

Arnason, H. Harvard. Sculpture by

Houdon. Exh. cat., Worcester Art

Museum. Worcester, MA, 1964.

371
Index

Page numbers in italic type refer to illustrations;

page numbers in boldface, to a work's main

catalogue entry. Unless otherwise specified,

sculptures listed below are by Houdon. Likenesses are indexed under the subject's name

(e.g., Voltaire: Houdon's statue of). Works and

persons mentioned only under Related Works

are not indexed.

Académie de France, Rome, 6, 35, 63, 65,348

Académie de Saint-Luc, 19, 296

Académie de Toulouse, 348,349

Académie française, 26 n. 52,109,115,160,164,

171-173,177,349

Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, 6,

12,17-18,19, 2i, 26 n. 57, 34,35, 69,70, 94,

95 nn. 2,4; 225 -229, 230, 241, 289,348,

349,351. See also Salon du Louvre

Académie royale des sciences, 171,173,174,177,

207, 247, 248,350

Adams, Abigail, 253

Adams, John, 269

Adélaïde, Mme (Marie-Adélaïde de France),

283-285,286,287^8

Houdon's bust of [cat. 51], 21, 98,283 -287,

284,286, 287

other likenesses of: Labille-Guiard's portraits,

286; Lemoyne's bust, 283, 285,285 [fig. i];

Nattier's portraits, 283; Vigée-Lebrun's

portrait, 286

Adolf Frederick, king of Sweden, 59 n. i

Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, 159,161

n. 4,173

Alembert, Jean Le Rond d', 46-47, 51,109,112,

153,157-159,160,161 n. 4,171-173

Houdon's busts of, 6,147,179,350,352; (1778;

plaster; Schwerin), 46,171,173,173 [fig. i],

174; (probably 1802; marble; New Haven)

[cat. 27], 2i, 154,168,171-175,172,175,353;

Saint-Aubin's engraving after, 175

Lecomte's bust of, 174,174 [fig. 3]

Alexander I, emperor of Russia, 354; Houdon's

bust of (untraced), 53,354

Alexander, margrave of Ansbach, 41,46,160

Alexander the Great, 120 [fig. 2], 120-121, 296.

See also Head of Alexander

Algardi, Alessandro, 188; Cupid, 94

Allegrain, Christophe-Gabriel, 60 n. 39; Diana,

19,19 [fig. i], 217;

Andouillé, Jean-Baptiste, Pajou's bust of, 184

Angers, David d', 311,312 and n. 8

Angiviller, comte d', 8,17-18,19, 20, 23, 55, in,

116,177,208,212, 225,229,241,279,285,

286,289,291,297-298,350

Anna Amelia, duchess of Saxe-Weimar, 48 n. 32,

101-103

Anselin, Jean-Louis, A. I Hue, Mr. de Miromesnil

(engraving), 188 [fig. 2], 189

Antinous (Hadrianic copy of a Hermes), 79, 79

[fig. 3]

Apollo (statue): (1783; medium and present location unknown), 221, 224; (1788; bronze) [cat.

37], 24, 212, 218,220, 221-224, 223, 224,350

Apollo (medallion): (1777, Salon of),

209 n. 14, 224; (1780; marble; for Paul I),

209 n. 14, 224; (1782; marble; Paris), 208,

208 [fig. 2], 209 n. 14, 224

Apollo (Coustou), 83, 83 [fig. 2]

Apollo and Daphne (Bernini), 83

Apollo and the Nymphs of Thetis (Girardon and

Regnaudin), 243,244 [fig. 3]

Apollo Belvedere (Roman, after Leochares), 34,

221, 222 [fig. i], 223

Arlandes, marquis de, 207

Arnould, Sophie, 97, 98-99,100 nn. 19, 20;

loi, 105,348

Houdon's bust of, 6; (1775; marble; Paris)

[cat. 8], 2i, 22, 26 n. 49,44, 96, 97-100,

100, loi, 103,106,119,187,348; (1775;

plaster; Weimar) [cat. 9], 21,44, 99,

101-103,1O2>

 103> II9> J^7» depicted in

Boilly paintings, 340 [cat 66], 341,343 [fig. i]

Artois, comte d', 19, 97, 231, 279

Assembly of Notables, 260

Aubry, 115,117 n. 2

Audéoud, Anne, Houdon's bust of, 24,140 n. 10,

213, 219

Audéoud, Michel, 24

Audran, engraving after N. Mignard, Molière, m,

in [fig. 2]

Augereau, Gen. Charles-Pierre, 323

Bacciochi, Elisa, grand duchess of Tuscany,

327 n. ii

Bachaumont, Louis Petit de, 54,187,188, 217,

218, 248

Bachelier, 352; Houdon's mémoire to, 25 n. 30,

26 n. 59, 69,113,116,179, 221, 224 n. 5,

243, 282,351

Bailly, Jean-Sylvain, 198,201

Houdon's bust of (ca. 1790; terracotta;

Altenburg) [cat. 33], 9,42,197,201-205,

202,203,204,205, 281

other likenesses of: Deseine's bust, 198,200 n.

lo, 203,203 [fig. i], 204,351; P.-S.-B.

Duvivier's medal, 205

Baiser donné, Le (The Kiss Given): (1772; plaster;

Gotha), 30,32,37, 237; (1778; marble;

Los Angeles) [cat. 41], 23, 213,236, 237-240,

239; (before 1787; bronze), 23, 26 n. 64;

(n.d.; marble; Girardot de Marigny

inventory), 24, 239

Baiser rendu, Le (The Kiss Returned), 24, 213,

238-239

Balin, bas-reliefs after, 33,38

Balsamo, Giuseppi. See Cagliostro

Barclay, Thomas, 259

Barère, Bertrand, 119

Barlow, Joel, 276-277; Houdon's bust of, 9,353;

(1803-1804; plaster; New York), 275, 276,

278 n. 5,353; (1804; marble; Washington),

275,276 [fig. i]

Barlow, Ruth Baldwin, 276-277

Barrière, M., 311,312 n. 2

Barry, Mme du, 191

Barthélémy, abbé, Houdon's bust of, 173,173

[fig. 2], 174,352

Bartolini, Lorenzo, Napoleon Bonaparte, 326,

326 [fig. i]

Basan, Pajou's bust of, 25 n. 42

Bas-Relief of Ecorché (Doell), 34,37

Bas-Relief of Hercules Famese (Doell), 34,37

Bastille, fall of, 197,198, 260

372
Bataille, lithograph after Boilly, Houdon in

His Studio, 327 n. 2

Bather, 18,19, 241, 243,348,349; (1775, Salon of;

plaster; lost), 187,348; (1782; marble;

New York), 243 [fig. 2]

Bâtiments du Roi, 8,17-18,19,24, m, 212,225,

241,283, 285, 289,347,348

Bayard, Chevalier Pierre-Terrail, Moutoni's

statue of, 354

Beauharnais, Alexandre de, 333

Beccaria, Cesare, Dei deliti e délie pene, 52

Bélanger, François-Joseph, 97, 99

Belisarius. See Head ofBelisarius

Bergeret de Grandcourt, 24, 80

Bernini, Gian Lorenzo, 21,151 n. 22,188, 223;

Apollo and Daphne, 83

Berruer, Pierre-François, 18, 95 n. 4

Bertonnier, engraving after Therbouche, Diderot,

147,147 [fig. 4]

Bertuch, Friedrich Justin, 299

Betskoi, Ivan Ivanovich, 53,55,306,307

Beurnonville, Pierre de Riel, comte de, 309

Boilly, Julien, 344 nn. 2,3

Boilly, Louis-Léopold, 341

Houdon in His Studio (1803-1804; Paris), 9, 25

n. 34,341,342,343 [fig. i); works depicted in,

71,76, zoo, 108,117,140,150,170,179,180,

214-215,233, 245,250,262,267,268,273,

297,317

Houdon in His Studio (after 1803; Cherbourg)

[cat. 66], 9,340,341-344; preparatory study

for, 342,344 [fig. 2]; works depicted in, 71,

76, zoo, 108,117,137,140,150,170,179,

180,208,215,233, 245,250,262,267,268,

273> 297» 31?

Houdon Modeling the Bust of Napoleon (n.d.;

unknown location), 323,344; lithograph

after, by Bataille, 327 n. 2

A Painter's Studio (ca. 1800; Washington), 70

[fig. i], 71,344 n. 6

portrait of Houdon's brother, 341,344 n. 2

Studio of a Young Artist (Moscow), 344 n. 6

Boissy d'Anglas: Houdon's bust of (lost), 25 n. 32,

354; Houdon's life mask of, 20, 25 n. 32

Boizot, Louis-Simon, 23, 95 n. 4,198, 281,347,

348, 351; Jacques-Akxandre-César Charles,

208, 209 n. 12; Lewis XVI, King of France:

(1777; marble; Versailles), 279,281 [fig. 2];

(lost work), 282 n. 7•; Jacques Necker, 198,

198 [fig. 2], 199, 200 n. 10, 282 n. 7

Bonaparte, Lucien, 267,313,316

Bonaparte, ist Mme Lucien, née Cristine Boyer,

Houdon's bust of, 316

Bonaparte, 2nd Mme Lucien, Alexandrine

Joubertin, née Jacob de Bleschamp, 313

Bonaparte, Napoleon. See Napoleon Bonaparte

Bordier, Mme, 229-230, 233, 235 n. 12

Borghese antiquities, 330; Gladiator, 81-83

Bosio, François-Joseph: Josephine, 334,334 [fig. 2];

Napokon Bonaparte, 326,326 [fig. 2]

Bossuet, Jacques Bénigne, Pajou's statue of, 18,

293 n. 6

Bouchardon, Edme, 17,33,212

Ecorché, engraving after, by Huquier, 64, 65

[% IL 67

Equestrian Statue of Louis XV, 35, 39 n. n, 54,

58; reduced version of, by Vassé, 53 [fig. 3]

Boucher, François, Hercules ana Omphak,

237-238,238 [fig. i]

Boudard, Jean-Baptiste, 230

Bouille, François-Claude-Amour, marquis de,

282 n. 5; Houdon's bust of, 49 n. 53, 279,

282 n. 5

Boulanger, Jean, print series finished by, 83

Bourbon, duc de, medal of (Duvivier), 38

Bourgeois de Boynes, 24

Bourgeois de la Richardière, Antoine-Achille,

engraving after Maurice-Quentin de La Tour,

Sophie Amould, 100

Boutin, Simon-Charles, 19

Boyer, Christine, Houdon's posthumous bust of,

3i6

Brachard, Alexandre, 291

Brandenstein, August Georg von, 45

Bridan, Charles-Antoine, 95 n. 4

Brissac, duc de, 24, 297; Houdon's bust of, 24,

26 n. 68,350

Brongniart, Alexandre, 127,130

Houdon's bust of (1777; terracotta; Paris)

[cat. 15], 128,127-132,131

other likenesses of: Vigée-Lebrun's portrait,

127; Wattier's portrait, 132 n. 16

Brongniart, Alexandre-Théodore, 127,131

Brongniart, Emilie: Couasnon's bust of, 130,131

[fig. 4]; Vigée-Lebrun's portrait of, 127

Brongniart, Louise, 127

Houdon's bust of (1777; terracotta; Paris)

[cat. 16], 129,127-132,132; marble bust

after (Los Angeles), 127,132

Vigée-Lebrun's portrait of, 127

Browere, John H.I., Life Mask of Thomas Jefferson,

271,272 [fig. 2]

Brown, Henry Kirke, equestrian statue of George

Washington, 267

Brutus (Michelangelo), 120

Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de, 46, 57,

6o n. 36,177,178-179,197; Histoire

naturelle, 177

Houdon's busts of, 8,49 n. 53,179-180;

(1781; bronze; Neuchâtel) [cat. 28], 22,

154,176,177-181,179,180; (1781; plaster;

Schwerin), 46,178 [fig. 2], 179,180;

(1782; marble; St. Petersburg), 54, 55,

177-178,179,350; (by 1783; marble; Paris),

178,179-180,181 n. 8,350; (1789, Salon of;

marble), 147,179,181; depicted in Boilly

paintings, 180,340 [cat. 66], 343 [fig. i]

other likenesses of: Defernex' bust, 177;

Drouais' portrait, 177; Pajou's bust, 21,177,

178,178 [fig. i], 179; Pajou's statue, 177

Bust of a Negress, 241, 243,243 [fig. i], 244,245.

See also Head of a Negress

Bust of Diana (1778; marble; Washington)

[cat. 36], loo n. 17, 2ii, 216, 217-219,219,

243,349; Saint-Aubin's drawing of, 218,

218 [fig. 2], 219

Caffieri, Jean-Jacques, 17,18,19, 22, 23, 24,

25 nn. 2i, 40; in, ii2,117 n. 6,153, 248;

Benjamin Franklin, 247, 248,248 [fig. 3],

249; Claude-Adrkn Helvétius, 21,21 [fig. 3];

Jean de La Fontaine, 115,116 [fig. 2], 117 nn. 7,

8; Antoine Louis, 183; Molière (bust), in,

113 n. 16; (statue), in; Alexis Pirón, m;

Philippe Quinault, in

Cagliostro, comte Alessandro, Giuseppe

Balsamo, called, 123-124,125

Houdon's bust of, 181 n. 9,350; (1786; marble;

Aix-en-Provence), 124,125,126; (1786;

marble; Washington) [cat. 14], 22,122,

123-126,125,126,181 n. 9; depicted in

Boilly paintings, 340 [cat. 66], 341,343 [fig. i]

other likenesses of: bust of, attributed to

Ja... de Viller, 124,124 [fig. 2]; Guerin's

engraving of, 124,124 [fig. i]

Calamatta, Luigi, 137

Calamatta, Mme Luigi, née Joséphine RaoulRochette, 136,137

Galonné,. 24

Camus, Armand Gaston, 351

Canova, Antonio, 25 n. 23,334; Napokon

Bonaparte, 326,330,330 [fig. i]

Capitoline Aphrodite, cast after, depicted in

Boilly paintings, 70 [fig. i]; 340 [cat. 66], 342

Caracalla (Roman), 120,120 [fig. i]; copy after,

33'37

Carbonnières, Ramond de, 124

Carl August, duke of Saxe-Weimar, 41,44-45,

48 n. 30, loi, 106, 297

Carmontelle, Louis Carrogis, called, 241

Carracci: Agostino, Annibale, and Ludovico, 83

Cartellier, Pierre, 330,354

Carthusian order, 19, 63,73,77,79

Castries, maréchal de, 26 n. 78

Cathelin, engraving after Jean-Baptiste Greuze,

Antoine Louis, 184 [fig. 2], 185

373

INDEX
Catherine II, empress of Russia, 8,19,42,

51-52,53-58, 59 nn. i, 29; 60 n. 44,141,151

n. i, 156,160,163-164,165 and nn. 3,4,5;

177-178,179,211,230,349,350

Houdon's bust of, 54,54 [fig. 4], 55-56, 58,

59 n. 23, 285,305; Gaucher's engraving

after Greuze's drawing of, 55-56,56 [fig. 5];

plaster copies of, 55, 59 n. 23

Houdon's writing case for, 23,26 n. 63

proposed monument to, 55-58, 60 n. 44

statues of: by Meyer, 60 n. 44; by Shubin,

60 n. 44

Catinat, Nicolas, 289

Caumartin, Antoine-Louis-François Le Fèvre de,

Houdon's bust of, 247

Cayla, Mme du, Houdon's portrait of, 98

Caylus, comte de, 21; engraving after the antique,

"Triumph of P[an]," 38; (?) engraving of

"Turned vases," 38

Ceres (Winter), 19, 231,231 [fig. 5]

Chalgrin, Jean-François-Thérèse, 269

Champs-de-Mars, affaire du (1791), 201

Chardin, Jean-Siméon, Antoine Louis, 184,185

Charlemagne, 323; Houdon's statue of, 349

Charles IX, king of France, Houdon's bust of,

113 n. 20

Charles, Jacques-Alexandre-César, 207, 208;

Boizot's bust of, 208

Charlotte Amalie of Saxe-Meiningen, duchess of

Saxe-Gotha, 33,42, 204; Houdon's bust of,

285,302,302 [fig. 2]; Houdon's portrait

medallion of (lost), 34,285,299,302

Chartres, Louis-Philippe, duc de (title 1785-

1793). See Louis-Philippe, king of France

Chartres, Louis-Philippe-Joseph d'Orléans, duc

de (title 1752-1785). See Philippe Egalité

Châtillon, Louis de, Ludí Lupercali, 83, 84 [fig. 3]

Chaudet, Antoine-Denis, 352; Napoleon

Bonaparte, 326

Chaussard, J.-B., 333

Chauvigny de Blot, vicomte, 26 n. 78

Chinard, Joseph, 333, 354; Josephine, 333,334

[% i]

Choéphore. See Apollo and the Nymphs ofThetis

Christ Holding the Cross (Michelangelo), 75, 75

[fig-4]

Christian IV, duke of Pfalz-Zweibrucken, 105

Christian VII, king of Denmark, 55

Christian August of Anhalt-Zerbst, 59 n. i

Cicero, 338,338 [fig. i], 352,353

Cicero (Roman), 146 [fig. 2], 147

Cincinnatus, Lucius Quintus, 20,265

Clairon, Hippolyte, 100 n. 20,119; Lemoyne's

bust of, 98, 99 [fig. 2]

Claudius Gothicus, commemorative bronze coin

for, 43; drawing of, 43 [fig. i]

Clérisseau, Charles-Louis, 53, 55

Clodion, 24, 127, 229, 348; models for monument commemorating flight of Charles and

Robert, 209 n. 9; Montesquieu, 18; vase

depicted in Boilly painting, 340 [cat. 66], 342

Cochin, Charles Nicolas, 151 n. 3; Prince Henry

of Prussia, engraving after, by Gaucher, 298,

29g (fig. 3]

Cochin, Charles Nicolas, and Hubert-François

Gravelot, Sleep, terracotta after, 95 n. 8

Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, Houdon's bust of, 113 n. 20

Collignon, François. See Coysevox, Antoine, and

François Collignon

Collin d'Harleville, Houdon's death mask of, 20

Collot, Marie- Anne, 151 nn. 5, 6; busts of Diderot:

(1766; terracotta), 141, 151 nn. 6, 7, 10;

(1772; marble), 141, 146, 146 [fig. i]

Comédie-Française, 109, in, 113 n. 6, 115, 119,

120, i2i, 153, 160, 163, 349

Commission conservatrice des monuments, 239

Commission temporaire des arts, 243

Committee of Public Safety, 244, 351

Communal Assembly, 201, 203

Commune générale des arts, 351

Commune of Paris, 198, 268, 351

Conde, prince de, dock sold to, 23, 26 n. 62

Condorcet, 174; Houdon's bust of (Berlin),

49 n. 53

Constantine the Great, Roman emperor, 43

Constantin of Saxe- Weimar, 44

Constituent Assembly, 168, 271, 313, 333, 351

Consulate, 282 n. 9, 313, 323

Continental Congress, 251

Corneille: La Mort de Pompée, m; statue of,

in Great Man series, 164

Cornwallis, 257

Coronation of Louis XV (medal proof)

(J. Duvivier), 38

Correspondence littérature, 41-42, 48 n. 5, 52, 54,

56, 60 n. 43, 119-120, 173, 193

Costentin, Anne- Hilarión. See Tourville,

Anne-Hilarion Costentin, maréchal de

Couasnon, Jean-Louis, Emilie Brongniart, 130,

Coustou, Guillaume I, 64, 223

Coustou, Guillaume II, 293 n. 6

Coustou, Nicolas, Apollo, 83, 83 [fig. 2]

Coypel, Charles, copy after N. Mignard, Molière,

113 n. ii

Coysevox, Antoine, 17, 20, 112; Marie-Adélaïde

de Savoie, 287 n. 8

Coysevox, Antoine, and François Collignon,

mausoleum for the marquis de Vaubrun,

27^79

Creidemann, Fedor Ivanovich, 307

Crevelt, Jean-Jacques Flatters de, 354

Cupid (Algardi), 94

Cupid and Psyche (Roman, after late Hellenistic

work), 32, 238,239 [fig. 2]

Curchod, Suzanne. See Necker, Mme Jacques

Dandré-Bardon, Michel-François, 66, 83,

85 n. 12; Costumes des anciens peuples, 83

Danloux, Henri-Pierre, 212

Dantan the Elder, 112

Daru, Pierre, comte, 329,330

Dashkova, Princess, Houdon's bust of, 22

Daudet de Jossan, 146

David, Emerich, 325

David, Jacques-Louis, 269,319; The Crowning

of Josephine by Napokon, 333; Grief, 98, 9$

[fig. i]; Napoleon Bonaparte, 331 n. 4

Deane, Silas, 257

death masks, 20. See also under Rousseau

Defemex, Jean-Baptiste, 151 n. 22; Buffon, 177;

Mme Favart, 151 n. 22

Dejoux, Claude, 351,354

Delarive. See Larive

De Launay, Robert, engraving after Houdon,

The Montgoljier Brothers, 208,208 [fig. i], 209

Deloye, Gustave, 26 n. 60, 249; copies after

Houdon, Diderot, 23; Michel-Jean Sedaine,

copy after, by Fichet, 23

Demosthenes (Polyeuktos), copy after, 33,37

Denis, Mme, 19,156,164,349

Denon, Vivant. See Vivant Denon

Descartes, René, Pajou's statue of, 18

Deseine, Louis-Pierre, 281; Jean-Sylvain Bailly,

198, 200 n. 10, 203,203 [fig. i], 204,351;

La Fontaine, 117 n. 8

Desfriches, Aignan-Thomas, 116,117 nn. 12,15;

190

Desjardins, Martin, 17

Destutt de Tracy, Count Antoine-Louis-Claude,

271, 272

Diana (Allegrain), 19,19 [fig. i], 217

Diana the Huntress, 6, 241,349,350,352;

(1776; plaster; Gotha), 42,211,213;

(1777; plaster; studio piece), 18,211,217,218,

349; (1780; marble; Lisbon), 18-19,42' 53'

54,181 n. 9,2ii, 212 [fig. i], 213,218,350;

(1782; bronze; San Marino) [cat. 35], 19, 24,

210, 211-215,214>

 215> 2I7» 22I> 222-223,

229, 241,243; Louvre version, 25 n. 17,213;

(n.d.; small terracotta; Girardot de Marigny

inventory), 213, 214; depicted in Boilly

paintings, 214-215,340 [cat. 66], 341,

343 [fig. i]. See also Bust of Diana; for the

pendant, see Apollo

Diana the Huntress (Roman copy after Greek),

217,218 [fig. i], 223

374

131[Eg.4]
Diana the Huntress (School of Fontainebleau),

212, 212 [fig. 2]

Diderot, Denis, 8, 20, 22, 24, 36, 41, 42, 43, 44,

51, 52, 53, 59, 91-93, 95 n. 9, 141, 146,

147-148, 149, 151 nn. 5, 6, 7, 20; 153, 163,

165 and n. 2, 167, 183, 197, 230, 291, 305,

306, 307, 308 n. 2, 350

Houdon's bust of, 6, 8; (1771; terracotta; Paris)

[cat 19], 2i, 22, 23, 141-151, 142, 148, 153, 154,

167, 171, 178, 209 n. 12, 348; Deloye's copies

after, 23, 150; (1773; marble; New York), 54,

59 n. 18, 146, 149; (1775; marble; Paris), 146,

149; (1775; marble; Versailles) [cat. 20], 22,

141-151, 143, 148, 150, 153, 167, 171; (1780;

bronze; Langres) [cat. 21], 22, 26 n. 52,

141-151, 144, 148, 153, 167, 171, 178, 349;

plasters of, 26 n. 52, 350; (17805; plaster;

Stockholm) [cat. 22], 4, 22, 141-151, 145, 148,

153, 167, 171, 175; (by 1789, Salon of; marble),

147; (n.d.; plaster; Gotha), 42, 146, 149;

(n.d.; plaster; formerly Rheinsberg and

Berlin, lost), 49 n. 53, 146, 149; depicted in

Boilly paintings, 150, 340 [cat. 66], 343 [fig. i]

other likenesses of: Collot's busts (1766; terracotta), 141, 151 nn. 6, 7, 10; (1772; marble),

141-146, 146 [fig. i]; Falconet's bust, 151 n. 7;

Lemoyne's mask, 141; Pigalle's portrait, 147;

Therbouche's portrait, 147; engraving after,

by Bertonnier, 147 [fig. 4]; Van Loo's portrait,

Diderot, Denis, and Jean Le Rond d'Alembert,

Encyclopédie, 8, 41, 46, 52, 146, 147, 157, 163,

171, 183

Diodati, comte de, 45

Directoire, 6, 204, 352

Doell, Friedrich Wilhelm, 29, 33, 34, 35, 39 n. 9,

42, 48 n. 13, 299; Bas-Relief of Ecorché, 34,

37; Bas-Relief of Hercules Farnese, 34, 37

Drouais, François-Hubert, 132 n. n; Buffon, 177

Dubray, Vital, 335 n. 6

Dumont, Jacques-Edme, 229

Dumouriez, Charles-François Du Périer, called,

309, 311, 312 n. i; Houdon's bust of [cat. 58],

309-312, 310, 312; Houdon's life mask of,

20, 309, 312 n. 2; Rouillard's portrait of, 311,

311 [fig. i]

Dupaty, Emmanuel Mercier, Houdon's bust of,

205

Duplessis, Joseph Siffred, 111-112; Benjamin

Franklin, 247, 248; Christoph Willibald

Gluck, 105, 108 nn. 2, ^Jacques Necker, 199,

199 [fig. 3]; Louts XVI, 279

Du Pont de Nemours, 25 n. 17, 214, 248

Dupré, Augustin, Medal of John Paul Jones, 255,

255 [% 2]

Duquesnoy, Adrien-Cyprien, 313,316,317 n. 3

Houdon's bust of [cat. 60], 313-317,315,316,

337; terracotta depicted in Boilly paintings,

317,340 [cat. 66], 343 [fig. i]

Duquesnoy, Mme Adrien-Cyprien, née Elisabeth-Antoinette Jadelot, called Mirabelle, 313

Houdon's bust of [cat. 59], 313-317,314,316;

depicted in Boilly painting, 342,343 [fig. i]

Duval, Edouard, 136,137

Duval, Richard, 136,137

Duvivier, Jean, medal proofs, 30,33; Coronation

of Louis XV, 38; Equestrian Statue of Louis XV,

in Bordeaux, 37 [fig. 7], 38; Mr. k Duc de

Bourbon, 38; Mr. le Maréchal de Villars, 38;

Saint Michael Striking Down the Angels, 38

Duvivier, Pierre-Simon-Benjamin

drawing, Frédéric-Mekhior Grimm, 52,52 [fig. i]

medals and proofs, 30,33; Jean-Sylvain Bailly,

205; Duc de Villars, 38; Equestrian Statue

of Louis XV, 38; Friedrich III, Duke of

Saxe-Gotha, 43-44,48 nn. 24, 27, 299,302

[fig. i]; Henry IV, 38,38 [fig. 8]; The King in

Formal Dress, 38; Lafayette, 262; Mr. l'Evêque

de Rheims, 38; George Washington, 268

Ecole nationale de peinture et de sculpture, 352

Ecole royale des élèves protégés, 83,347,348

Ecole spéciale de peinture et sculpture, 25 n. n,

94' 353

Ecorché, L (statue of a flayed man), 63-71,

85 n. 12, 237

head of, 217

with right arm extended horizontally, 6, 8,31,

65-66,87; (1766; day), 63-64,74,79,348;

(1767; plaster; Gotha), 30,31,34,35,36, 64,

65, 87,348; (1767; plaster; Rome) [cat. i], 31,

35, 62, 63-66, 64, 66, 67,74,217,237,348;

(1769; plaster; Paris), 35, 65, 65 [fig. 2], 69,

348; bas-relief after, by Doell, 34,37

with right arm raised above his head), 23, 67,

69,75, 349; (1779; Poster; Montpellier),

69, 70, 349; (1790; bronze; Paris) [cat. 2],

26 n. 51, 67-71, 68, 69, 71, 222, 351;

depicted in Boilly paintings, 70 [fig. i], 71,

340 [cat. 66], 341,343 [fig. i]; Pariseau's

engravings after, 69

Ecorché (Huquier, engraving after Bouchardon),

64, 65 [fig. i], 67

Edelinck, engraving after Rigaud, Jean de La

Fontaine, 115,116 [fig. i]

Egyptian Rite, 123

Eliot, George, 106

Elizabeth, empress of Russia, 51, 59 n. i

Emperor Hadrian (Roman), 33,33 [fig. 6], 37

Enlightenment, 8,42,105,197,337

Ennery, comte de, monument of, 24, 26 n. 78

Ennery, Pauline d', 26 n. 78; Houdon's portrayal

of, 24,24 [fig. 5], 26 n. 78

Epinay, Mme d', 42,44,48 n. 24,167,193

equestrian monuments. See under Louis XV;

Peter I the Great; and Washington, George

Ernst II, duke of Saxe-Gotha, 8,19, 29,30,31,33,

35,36,41,42,43,57, 65,74,79,80,81,85,

87,88,109,113,146,170,204,2ii, 237,249,

342,348; coins of, 302; Houdon's letter to,

29-30,30 [fig. i], 31-32,33-36,39 n. 5,42,

77, 81, 87-88,342, 355-360; Houdon's

medallion of [cat. 56], 40,42,44, 285,

299-303,301,303; medal celebrating the

wedding of (unstruck) 48 nn. 18, 24

Estates General, 197, 201, 260, 281,313

Euthydemos I, king of Bactria, coins of, 303 n. 5

Falconet, Etienne-Maurice, 17,24,53,56,57,58,

141,151 nn. 5, 6, 7; 307; Equestrian

Monument of Peter the Great, 54, 56,57

[fig. 6], 58,307; model of monument to

Catherine II, 57; Winter, 230, 230 [fig. 4]

Faujas de Saint-Fond, M., 207, 209

Favanne, Jacques de, 95 n. 8

Favart, Mme, Defernex's bust of, 151 n. 22

Feliciani, Lorenza, 123

Ferdinand of Prussia, prince, 49 n. 52, 296, 298

Ferrein, Antoine, Pigalle's bust of, 184

Fichet, copy after Deloye, Michel-Jean Sedaine, 23

Fontainebleau, School of, Diana the Huntress,

212,212 [fig. 2]

Fontanel, Abraham, 69,180

Foot of the Venus de Medici (unidentified), copy,

36,38

Portia de Piles, 54,164

Four Parts of the World (unidentified, after Balin),

copy, 33,38

Fragonard, Jean-Honoré, Benjamin Franklin, 247

Francin, Guillaume, copies: after Houdon,

Christoph Willibald Gluck, 107; after

Lecomtejean Le Rond d'Alembert, 174

Franklin, Benjamin, 8-9,17,123,153,174-175,

183, 247, 248, 251-253, 254, 263, 267,

269,350

Houdon's busts of, 6,8,25 n. 29,26 n. 73,49

n. 53,147,179, 213, 249-250, 253, 277,351;

(1778; marble; New York), 247, 248, 248

[fig. i], 249,349; (1778; plaster; Gotha), 42,

249; (i77[8?]; plaster; Boston, formerly

Monticello), 250, 260, 267, 271; (1778; terracotta; Paris), 248, 248 [fig. 2], 249; (1779;

marble; Philadelphia) [cat. 43], 21,168,173,

246, 247-250, 249, 250, 269; (by 1783;

shown at Musée de Paris), 250 n. 6,350;

depicted in Boilly paintings, 340 [cat. 66],

341' 343 [fig. i]

375

INDEX

147.147[fig.31.149
other likenesses of: Caffieri's bust, 247, 248,

248 [fig. 3], 249; Duplessis' portrait, 247,

248; Fragonard's portrait, 247; Greuze's

portrait, 247

Franklin, William Temple, 248, 249

Frederick II the Great, king of Prussia, 41,46,

157-159,160,171,173, 295; Eulogy to

Voltaire, 159

Frederick William II, king of Prussia, 235,296,297

Frederick William III, king of Prussia, 47,113,354

freemasonry, 8,120,123, 251-253. See also

entries at Loge

French Revolution, 8,17,120,164,168,197,201,

204, 244, 260, 295,313

Fréron, Elie, 151 n. 3

Friedericke Louise of Saxe-Gotha, Houdon's

portrait of, 302

Friedrich III, duke of Saxe-Gotha, 42,43, 299,

302; coins of, 302; commemorative medal

of, after Houdon's design (bronze), 43-44,

48 nn. 24, 27; 299,302 [fig. i]; (silver),

43-44,44 [fig. 2], 48 nn. 24, 27; Houdon's

medallion of [cat. 55], 42-44, 285,

299-303'30o

Friedrich Franz I, grand duke of MecklenburgSchwerin, 23,45-46,49 n. 40,109,113,116,

161,170,174; Houdon's bust of (1782; terracotta; Schwerin), 45,45 [fig. 3], 46; larger copy

(plaster; Heidecksburg), 49 n. 49

Frileuse, La. See Winter (La Frikuse}

Fulton, Robert, 275-277; Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation, 275-276

Houdon's bust of, 9,353; (1803-1804; marble;

Detroit) [cat. 49], 274, 275-278,277,278;

(1803-1804; plaster; New York), 276,276

[fig. 2], 278

Fulton, Mrs. Robert, née Harriet Livingston, 277

Galiani, Abbé Ferdinando, 42,43,44,48 nn. 23,

24, 97, 299,302

Gatteaux, Nicolas-Marie, gold medal after

Houdon's design, The Montgoljier Brothers,

207, 208, 209

Gaucher, Charles-Etienne, 55; engravings: after

Cochin, Prince Henry of Prussia, 298,298

[fig. 3]; after Greuze's drawing of Houdon's

Catherine II, 55-56,56 [fig. 5]

Gerbier, Pierre-Jean-Baptiste, Houdon's bust of,

297

Gessner, Salomon, 194

Getty, M., 222, 224 n. 5,353,354

Gillet, Nicolas-François, 53,308 n. 18

Girardin, René-Louis de, 167,168,169; portrait

of, attributed to Greuze, 168,169 [fig. 3]

Girardin, Stanislas, 168

Girardon, François, 17

Girardon, François, and Thomas Regnaudin,

Apollo and the Nymphs of Thetis, 243,244 [fig. 3]

Girardot de Marigny, Jean, 19, 24, 26 n. 73,

137,140 n. 10,191, 212-213,

 221' 223' 239'

241, 243

Girardot de Vermenoux, Marie-Jeanne, 191

Girardot de Vermenoux, Paul-Louis, 191

Girardot de Vermenoux, Mme Paul-Louis, née

Anne-Germaine Larrivée, 26 n. 74,191-194

Houdon's bust of (1777; marble) [cat. 31], 21, 98,

191-195,192,194,195; plaster version

(ca. 1777; Geneva), 193,194,194 [fig. 3];

Saint- Aubin's drawing of the marble

(then titled Portrait of Madame de ***),

191,193 [fig. i], 195

Liotard's painting of, 191-193,193 [fig. 2]

Girondins, 309

Gluck, Christoph Willibald, 44,46, 97,101,

105-106,108 n. 6; operas: Iphigénie en

Aulide, 44, 97, loi, 105,108 n. 4; Orphée

et Eurydice, 97,105,108 n. 4

Duplessis' portrait of, 105,108 nn. 2,4

Houdon's busts of, 119; (1775, Salon of; plaster),

44, 97,105,106,107,187; Saint-Aubin's

drawing of, 107,107 [fig. 2]; (1775; plaster;

Weimar) [cat. 10], 44, 97,101,104,105-108,

106,107 [fig. i], 108,124,187; (1777; marble;

destroyed), 106,107,108 n. 10,349; copy

after, by Francin, 107; (before 1782; plaster;

Schwerin), 46,107; depicted in Boilly

paintings, 108,340 [cat. 66], 341,343 [fig. i]

Godecharle, Gilles Lambert, copies after

Houdon: Napoleon Bonaparte, 330 [fig. 2],

331; Winter (La Frikuse), 233

Gois, Etienne Pierre Adrien, 18, 80 n. i

Golitsyn, Prince Aleksandr Mikhailovich

(1723-1807), 53,59,305,306,307

Houdon's model for the tomb of [cat. 57], 229,

304,305-308,349; Saint-Aubin's sketch of,

306,306 [fig. 3]

Golitsyn, Prince Aleksei Dmitrievich (1697-

1767), tomb of, 305,306 [fig. i], 307,308

Golitsyn, Prince Dmitrii Alekseevich

(1734-1803), 141,148,151 nn. i, 3,4; 305,

306, 308 nn. 2,12

Golitsyn, Prince Dmitrii Mikhailovich

(1721-1793), 305, 307, 308 n. 12

Golitsyn, Prince Mikhail Mikhailovich (1685-

1764), tomb of, 54,305,306 [fig. 2], 307,308

Golitsyn, Piotr Mikhailovich (1738-1775), 305

Houdon's model for the tomb of (lost), 305,

306-307,349; tomb after, by Shubin and

Zemelhak, 307,307 [fig. 4], 308

Golitsyn family, 89,230,305

Concourt brothers, 97

Gôrtz, Johann Eustachius, Graf von, 44,48 n. 37

Gotha collection, 23,29-37,42,48 n. 15,77,348.

See also Ernst II

Graincourt, Antoine, copy after Rigaud, Maréchal

de Tourvilk, 293 n. 9

Grand, Rodolphe-Ferdinand, 25 n. 50,174-175,

266, 271, 273 n. ii

Grand Orient de France, 253

Great Men of France series, 8,18, 20, in, 116,

164, 289-291, 293 nn. 6,15

Greuze, Jean-Baptiste, 53, 55-56,154; Benjamin

Franklin, 247; Antoine Louis, 184; engraving

after, by Cathelin, 184 [fig. 2], 185

Greuze, Jean-Baptiste, after Houdon, Catherine

II, engraving after, by Gaucher, 55-56,

J6 [fig-5]

Greuze, Jean-Baptiste, attributed to, Marquis

René de Girardin, 168,169 [fig. 3]

Grief(David), 98, 98 [fig. i]

Grimm, Frédéric-Melchior, 8, 29,30,36,41-42,

43,44,45,46,48 nn. 5, 24,32; 52, 55,

57-58, 60 nn. 37,43; 141,149,151 n. 6,7;

153-154,156,163-164,165 and n. 2,167,

!77> !93> !97> 2ii, 212,223,248,253,254,

295, 297, 299,305, 306; P.-S.-B. Duvivier's

profile of, 52,52 [fig. i]

Guerin, Christophe, Cagliostro, 124,124 [fig. i]

Guérin, Georges-Martin, Pigalle's bust of, 184

Guiard, Laurent, 141,151 n. 5

Guibert, Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte de,

Houdon's bust of, 22, 26 n. 49,311

guillotine, 183

Gustav III, king of Sweden, 52, 55,146,149,175;

Houdon's bust of, 149

H., Mlle, bust of, 139

Hadrian, Roman emperor: medals of, 43;

Roman bust of, 33,33 [fig. 6], 37

Halem, Gerhard Anton von, 69,119

Harris, Sir James, 56

Harrison, Gov. Benjamin, 259, 263

Haudry, André, 116

Haudry, Estienne, 117 n. 10

Haudry, François-Pascal, 109,115,116,117 nn. 13,

15; 161,169; Simiand's bust of, 116,117 n. 14

Head of a Cupid Crowned with Myrtk, 31,37

Head ofAkxander, 32,37

Head of a Negress [cat. 42], 19, 241-245,242,244;

bust before damage, 241, 243,243 [fig. i]

Head of Apollo. See Apollo (medallion)

Head of a Vestal: (by 1769; plaster; Gotha), 30,32,

37, 88, 88 [fig. 2]; (1788; marble; Paris), 88

Head of Belisarius, 295,348,349

Head of Medusa, 32-33,37

Head of Minerva, 32,33 [fig. 5], 34,37, 224

376
Head of Saint Bruno, 31,34,36,80; (by 1772;

plaster; formerly Gotha), 31, 80; (1776

or after; plaster; Dijon), 31,31 [fig. 2], 32,80

Head of Saint John the Baptist: (1766-1767; day;

lost), 74-75; (1766-1767; plaster; Gotha),

30,31,32,36,74, 74 [fig. i], 75,76,217,

219 n. i

Head of Venus (unidentified), 34,38

Helvétius, Claude-Adrien, Caffieri's bust of,

21, 21 [fig. 3]

Helvétius, Mme, 247

Hénin, prince d', 97

Henriette of France, 283

Henri IV, king of France: P.-S.-B. Duvivier's

medal of, 38,38 [fig. 8]; Lemot's statue of,

3

2

7' 353

Henry of Prussia, Prince, 41,46,49 n. 52,109,

113,146,149,155,179,180, 261, 267, 295,

296, 298

Gaucher's engraving after Cochin's medallion

of, 298,298 [fig. 3]

Houdon's busts of, 296, 297-298,350,351;

(1785; plaster; Weimar), 44,106,296 [fig. 2],

297; (1785-1786; marble; present location

unknown), 296,296 [fig. i], 297-298,350;

(1788; plaster; purchased by the duc de

Brissac), 24,26 n. 70,297; (1789; bronze;

Berlin) [cat. 54], 44,46,121, 269, 294,

295-298, 297, 351; depicted in Boilly

paintings, 297,340 [cat. 66], 341,343 [fig. i]

Hercules and Omphale (Boucher), 237-238,238

[fig-1]

Hercules Farnese, 57; bas-relief of, by Doell, 34,37

His, François Pierre, 133

His, Mme François Pierre, née Marie-Anne

De Vatre, 133; Houdon's bust of, 98,

TOO n. 12,133,136 n. 2

Homer, after Blind Homer (Roman copy of

Hellenistic original), 33,37

Houdon, Anne-Ange (daughter), 137,139,350,

353; depicted in Boilly painting, 342,343

[fig. i]; Houdon's bust of (1791; marble),

139 [fig. 3]; plaster version, 137

Houdon, Antoinette-Claude, called Claudine

(daughter), 136,137,139, 234,344 n. 2,351,

353; depicted in Boilly painting, 342,343

[fig. i]; Houdon's bust of (1793; marble;

Worcester) [cat. 18], 130,137-140,138,140

Houdon, Jacques (father), 347,348,350

Houdon, Mme Jacques, née Anne Rabâche

(mother), 347,348

Houdon, Jacques-Philippe (brother), 98,347;

Boilly's portrait of, 341,344 n. 2

Houdon, Jean-Antoine

and Académie royale: 17-18,19,23,25 n. n, 81,

91, 94, 9 n. 4, 235 n. 5, 241, 285,348,349,

351; as a candidate (agréé], 29,31,81,187,303

n. 2,348; reception piece, 32,85 n. 5, 91, 94,

285 (see also Morpheus)

birth and baptism, 347

as a bronze founder, 33, 69,212, 221-222,

224 n. 5, 231, 296

as a businessman, entrepreneur, and promoter

of his work, 19, 22-23, ^4» 67-69,198,

212, 241,341; annual income, 353

cachet de l'atelier, 12,23, 67,203

death, 354

depicted by Boilly, 9,25 n. 34,323,340 [cat. 66],

341-342,343 [fig. i]

desire to create equestrian statues, 17,33,35, 54;

Washington project, 17, 20, 25 n. 2, 58, 263,

35°' 353

and Enlightenment thought, 8

as a freemason, 8,108 n. 6,120,123,123,

248,349

honors and awards, 347,353; Prix de Rome, 8,

77> 342

letter to Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha, 29-30,30

[fig. i], 31-32,33-36,39 n. 5,42,77,81,

87-88,342,355-360

marriage, 133, 293 n. 6,350

mémoire to Bachelier, 25 n. 30, 26 n. 59, 69,

113,116,179, 221, 224 n. 5, 243, 282,352

patrons, 19, 24, 53; German court, 41-47

reputation, 6,8

studies: Académie de France, Rome, 6,8, 21,

33' 34' 63,73,77.79>

 87> 91

» 347-34^; of

anatomy, 8, 25 n. 30, 63, 69, 79, 348;

Ecole royale des élèves protégés, 83, 91,

93,347; under Slodtz, 347

studio, 8,19, 22,23, 26 n. 58,44,47,348;

depicted by Boilly, 9, 25 n. 34,323,327 n. 2,

340 [cat. 66], 341-342,343 [fig. i]; move from

Bibliothèque du Roi to Salle du Zodiaque,

352; sales from (1795,1828), 23, 354

as a teacher, 35,351,353,354

techniques, methods, and materials, 20-21,

34,74,148,311

travels: to America, 6,17, 4 n. 52, 57, 58, 247,

263-265, 269, 350; to Gotha, 29,41,42,

299,303 n. 2,348

works of: likenesses are indexed under the subject's name; other works are listed by title

Houdon, Jean-Antoine, formerly attributed to,

Sleep, 95 n. 8

Houdon, Mme Jean-Antoine, née MarieAnge-Cécile Langlois, 69,133,136 nn. 5, 6;

22l, 234,350,354

Houdon's bust of: (1786; plaster; Paris) [cat. 17],

2i, 133-136, 134, 136, 137; copies after (1872),

23, 135; (1787; terracotta; Pittsburgh),

other likenesses of: in Boilly painting, 136, 342,

343 [fig. i]; Périn-Salbreaux' miniature, 133,

Houdon, Marie-Anne, or Madeleine-Pélagie

Houdon, pastels and drawings, 38

Houdon, Sabine-Marguerite- Josèphe (daughter),

136, 137, 139, 140, 313, 344, 350, 353

depicted in Boilly painting, 342, 343 [fig. i]

Houdon's busts of, 24, 213; (1788; marble;

New York), 137, 139 [fig. i]; (1791; marble;

private collection; draped version), 137, 139,

139 [fig. 2]; (1791; plaster; Paris; undraped

version), 135, 135 [fig. 3], 137

Houdon in His Studio. See under Boilly

Houze, Mme de la, 191; Houdon's portrait of, 98

Hubert, Jean-Jacques, engravings: after

Bounieu's drawing after Houdon, Buffon,

181; after Graincourt's copy after Rigaud,

Maréchal de Tourvitte, 293 n. 9

Huez, Jean-Baptiste-Cyprien d', 95 n. 4

Humboldt, M. de, 47

Huquier, Jacques-Gabriel, engraving after

Bouchardon, 64, Ecorché, 65 [fig. i], 67

Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg,

53' 57

Infante, Mme, Louise-Elisabeth of France, called,

283

Institut de France, 281, 282 n. 9, 291, 342, 352,

353

Iphigenia (Slodtz), 100 n. 17

Isabey, Jean-Baptiste, 319; Napokon Bonaparte,

331 n. 4

Jacobins, 201, 309

Jefferson, Thomas, 6, 9, 17, 19, 26 n. 65, 58, 160,

250, 251, 253, 254, 255, 259, 260, 263, 267,

269-271,350

Browere's life mask of, 271, 271 [fig. 2]

Houdon's bust of, 6, 277, 351; (1789; marble;

Boston) [cat. 48], 270, 269-273, 272, 273;

(ca. 1789; plaster; New York), 271, 271 [fig. i];

depicted in Boilly paintings, 273, 340

[cat. 66], 343 [fig. i]

Houdon's life mask of, 271

Johanna, princess of Holstein-Gottorp, 59 n. i

Jones, John Paul, 251-253

Dupré's medal of, 255, 255 [fig. 2]

377

INDEX

135[fig.1]

133_135.135[fig.a].136 and n.9
Houdon's bust of, 6, 9,260,267,254-255,

349; (1780; plaster; Boston), 254,254 [fig. i];

(1781; marble; Annapolis) [cat. 44], 20, 22,

123,251-255, 252, 253, 269,311; plasters of,

26 n. 49

Joseph II, emperor of Austria, 55,183

Josephine, empress of France, 319,323,333

Houdon's busts of, 6,9; (1806, Salon of;

plaster), 333,334-335 and n. 3,353; (1808;

marble; Versailles) [cat. 64], 277,329-330,

332,333-335,335,353

other likenesses of: Bosio's bust, 334,334

[fig. 2]; Chinard's bust, 333,334 [fig. i];

David's Crowning of Josephine by Napokon,

333; Dubray's statue, 335 n. 6

Joubert, Barthélémy-Catherine, Houdon's statue

oí 353

Joubertine, Alexandrine, née Jacob de

Bleschamp, 313

Julien, Pierre, 347,348; La Fontaine, 116,117 n. 9

Kiss of a Bacchante, 238

Knebel, Karl Ludwig, baron von, 44,106

Labille-Guiard, Adélaïde, Mme Adélaïde, 286

Laborde, Nathalie de, Pajou's bust of (1789), 21

Lafayette, Marie-Joseph-Paul-Ives-Roche-Gilbert

du Motier, marquis de, 205 n. 4, 254,

257-259, 260, 266, 268, 271,351

B. Duvivier's medal of, after Houdon, 262

Houdon's busts of, 6, 9, 269,350; (1786; marble; formerly Hôtel de Ville), 198,199, 203,

204,259,260,261,269,281,282 n. 8,350,

351; (1786; marble; Richmond), 259 [fig. i],

259-260, 261, 269; (before 1789; plaster;

Boston) [cat. 45], 256, 257-262,261,262,

267, 271, 311; (by 1789; plaster; for district

committee), 200 n. 8, 261; (1790; marble;

Versailles), 260, 260 [fig. 2], 262; (n.d.;

Berlin), 49 n. 53, 261; depicted in Boilly

paintings, 262,340 [cat. 66], 343 [fig. i]

Houdon's life mask of [cat. 46], 20,257-262,

258,262,271

Lafayette, Mme, née Adrienne de Noailles, 257

La Fontaine, Jean de, 240 n. 4

Houdon's bust of: (1781; terracotta; Orléans)

[cat. 12], 109, ii2,114,115-117,117; (by 1782;

plaster; Schwerin), 115,116; (1782; terracotta;

Vaux-le-Vicomte), 115,116; (1783, probably

Salon of; marble; Philadelphia), 115,117,350;

depicted in Boilly paintings, 117,340

[cat. 66], 343 [fig. i]

other likenesses of: CafBeri's bust, 115,116

[fig. 2], 117 nn. 7, 8; Deseine's bust, 117 n.

8; Julien's statue, 116,117 n. 9; Rigaud's

portrait, 115; engraving after, by Edelinck,

115,116 [fig. i]

Lalande, Jerome, Houdon's bust of, 117, 204

La Martinière, Germain Pichaut de,

Lemoyne's bust of, 184

La Motte, M. de, 347

Langlois, Jean, 133,350

La Peyronie, François Gigot de, 183; Lemoyne's

bust of, 184

Laplace, Pierre-Simon, 25 n. 34; Houdon's bust

of, 344 n. 7; depicted in Boilly painting, 342,

343 [%• i]

Largillière, Nicholas de, Voltaire, 160

Larive, Jean-Marie Maudit, called, 119,120

Houdon's bust of: (1783, Salon of; plaster), 121,

350; (1784; marble; Paris) [cat. 13], 118,

119-121,121,296,350

Larrivée de Vermenoux, Anne-Germaine. See

Girardot de Vermenoux, Mme Paul-Louis

La Tour, Maurice-Quentin de: Sophie Arnould,

engraving after, by Bourgeois de la

Richardière, 100; Jean-Jacques Rousseau,

167; engraving after, by Saint-Aubin, 167,

169 [fig. 2]

Lauraguais, Louis Félicité de Brancas,

comte de, 97

Lauth-Sand, Aurore, 137,140

Le Beau, Pierre-Adrien, engraving after Desrais

after Houdon, Maréchal de Tourville, 292,

292 [fig. 2]

Leblond, Gaspard Michel, abbé, 281, 282 n. 9

Le Brun, Charles, 26 n. 64; Skep, 92 [fig. 2], 93,

95 n. 8

Lecat, Claude-Nicolas, Lemoyne's bust of, 184

Leclerc, Gen. Charles-Victor-Emmanuel,

Moitte's funeral monument for, 337

Leclerc, Georges-Louis. See Bufïbn

Lecomte, Félix, 18, 95 n. 4, 281,348,351;

Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, 174,174 [fig. 3];

Marie Antoinette, 281

LeFebvre, Dominique, 347,348

Legion of Honor, 313,326,331 n. 7,353

Lekain, Henri-Louis Kain, called, 109

Le Masson, Dom André, 63,73,77

Lemire, Jean-Antoine, 347

Lemonnier, Anicet-Charles-Gabriel, 319

Lemot, François-Frédéric, 327, 352,354;

Henry IV, 353

Lemoyne, Jean-Baptiste II, 17, 20, 21,24, 25 n.

40,26 n. 66,33, 98,130,141,151 n. 5,212,

285; Mme Adélaïde, 283, 285, 285 [fig. i];

Mue Clairon, 98, 99 [fig. 2]; Diderot, 141; La

Martinière, 184; La Peyronie, 184; Lecat, 184;

Little Girl with Scarf, 132 n. n; Voltaire, 153

Lenglier (dealer), 117 n. 13

Lenoir, Alexandre, 112,161,174, 281

Leochares, 217; Roman copy after,

Apollo Belvedere, 211,222 [fig. i], 223

Leopold, archduke of Austria, 52

Le Pautre, Jean, and Louis de Châtillon, print

series after Tortebat, "Les Cérémonies

des fêtes Lupercales," 83; Ludi Lupercali

(Châtillon), 83, 84 [fig. 3]

Lesourd, Anselme, 354

Lespinasse, Julie de, 108 n. 4,171

life masks, 20. See also under Jefferson;

Lafayette; Washington

Ligne, prince de, 97

Liotard, Jean-Etienne, Anne-Germaine Larrivée

de Vermenoux, 191-193,193 [fig. 2]

Little Boy and Little Girl (Pajou), 130,130

[figs. 2 and 3]

Livingston, Robert, 254,277,353

Loge de la Sagesse Triomphante, 124

Loge des Neuf Soeurs, 8-9,12, 20, 54,

108 n. 6,120,123,160,184, 247, 248,

251-253,269,349

Lorteau, Françoise Cécile, 136 n. 5

Lorteau, Marie-Françoise, 350

Louis IX. See Saint Louis (Louis IX)

Louis XIV as Apollo (unidentified, after Balin),

copy, 33,38

Louis XV, 157,199, 279, 283, 286; Coronation of

(medal proof, by J. Duvivier), 38; Equestrian

Statue o/(Bouchardon), 35,39 n. n, 54, 58;

(reduced version of, by Vassé), 53 [fig. 3];

Equestrian Statue o/(medal proof, by

P.-S.-B. Duvivier), 38; Equestrian Statue of,

in Bordeaux (medal proof, by J. Duvivier),

37 [fig- 7]> 3& ^^ Kwg in Formal Dress

(medal proof, by P.-S.-B. Duvivier), 38

Louis XVI, 8,18,24,25 n. 16,187,197,208,212,

243, 251, 257,259, 260, 279-281, 282 n. 4,

283,309,350,351

Houdon's bust of: (178, Salon of; marble), 269,

279,281, 282,349; (1790; marble; formerly

Hôtel de Ville), 198,199,203, 281,282,351;

copies, 200 n. 8; (1790; marble; Versailles)

[cat. 50], 2i, 25 n. 34, 259, 269,279-282,

280, 282

other likenesses of: Boizot's bust (1777; marble;

Versailles), 279,281 [fig. 2]; (lost), 282 n. 7;

Duplessis' portrait, 279; Pajou's bust, 279,

281 [fig. i]

378
proposed monument to, Brest, 17,350

Louis XVIII, 281

Louis, Antoine, 183-184,185; Dictionnaire de

chirurgie, 183

Houdon's bust of (1782; marble; Paris) [cat. 29],

182,183-185,185,188,350

other likenesses of: anonymous bust, 184,184

[fig. i]; Caffieri's bust, 183; Chardin's profile

portrait, 184; engraving after, by Miger, 185;

Greuze's portrait, 184; engraving after, by

Cathelin, 184 [fig. 2], 185

Louis Dauphin, 283

Louis-Philippe, king of France (duc de Chartres,

1783-1793; duc d'Orléans, 1793-1830),

148, 254,309-311,312 and n. i

Louise, princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, 44

Louise, duchess of Mecklenburg- Schwerin,

45-46,49 n. 40; Houdon's bust of (1782;

terracotta; Schwerin), 21,45,45 [fig. 4],

46; larger copy (plaster; Heidecksburg),

49 n. 49

Louise Dorothea, duchess of Saxe-Gotha, 41,

42,52; Houdon's model for a funerary

monument to, 29,42, 98,187, 211,299,348

Lubersac de Livron, Charles-François, 55, 56, 57,

59 n. 26, 60 n. 36

Ludi Lupercali (Châtillon), 83, 84 [fig. 3]

Lully, Jean-Baptiste, 105

Lupercalia, 81

Lycée des arts, 20

Madison, James, 268 n. i, 271

Mailly, Augustin-Barnabe de, Chesme-Desk, 164,

165 n. 8

Mannlich, Johann Christian von, 63,74,79,

105-106,348

Manufacture royale de céramique, Sèvres, 116,

130,199, 208, 291

Maria Fedorovna of Russia, 55, 56, 59 n. 26

Maria Theresa, archduchess of Austria, 105

Marie-Adélaïde de France. See Adélaïde, Mme

Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie, dauphine, Coysevox'

statue of, 287 n. 8

Marie Antoinette, queen of France, 97,105,219,

251,279, 283; Lecomte's bust of, 281

Marie Leszczynska, queen of France, 97

Mariette, Pierre Jean, 83

Marigny, Jean Girardot de.

See Girardot de Marigny

Marigny, marquis de, 65,77, 283,303 n. 2,348

Marin, Joseph-Charles, 229

Marmontel, Jean-François, 191

Maudit, Jean-Marie. See Larive

Maurepas, Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux,

comte de, 187

Maximianus, Roman emperor, commemorative

medal of, 43

Mazetti, Joseph-André Vincent, 289, 293 n. 6

Mecklenberg-Schwerin, princes of, 179,180.

See also Friedrich Franz I

Meister, Jacques-Henri, 48 n. 5, 52, 56, 60 n. 43,

173,193,194

Méjanes, Houdon's death mask of, 20

Mémoires secrets (periodical), 54

Mengs, Anton Raphael, 53

Menzel, Adolf, 46; "Weifèlackierte Kammer,"

46,46 [fig. 5]

Menus Plaisirs du Roi, 98, 347

Mesmer, Anton, 201

Métra, François, 154,173, 250 n. 5

Meyer, "Domherr," 319

Meyer, Wilhelm Christian, Catherine II, 60 n. 43

Michelangelo: Brutus, 120; Christ Holding thé

Cross, 75, 75 [fig. 4]; Santa Maria degli

Angeli, Rome, 73,75

Mignard, Nicolas, Molière: copy after, by Coypel,

113 n. ii; engraving after, by Audran, 111,111

fe 2]

Mignard, Pierre, Molière, 113 n. 10; print after,

by Nolin, in

Minerva (medallion). See Head of Minerva

Mirabeau, Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de, 18,

313; Houdon's bust of, 21,22 [fig. 4];

Houdon's death mask of, 20

Miromesnil, Armand-Thomas Hue, marquis de,

109, ii2,187,188,189,190

Houdon's bust of: (1775; marble; London), 98,

187-188,189, 285; (1777; marble; New York)

[cat. 30], 2i, 22,98,184,186,187-190,189,

190; (after February 1781; marble; Montpellier), 189-190; engraving after, by Anselin,

188 [fig. 2], 189; (n.d.; plaster; Orléans), 117

n. 12,190

Moitte, Jean-Guillaume, 352,353; funeral monument for General Charles-Victor-Emmanuel

Lederc, 337; Houdon's bust of, 108

Molière, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, called

Houdon's bust of, 47,119,153,354; (1778;

marble; Paris), 109, in [fig. i], 112,153,349;

(1778; plaster; Montpellier), 26 n. 51,109,

112-113,349' (177%'> plaster; Paris), 109,112,

173; (1778, Salon of; terracotta), 109, in, 112,

349; (1781; terracotta; Orléans) [cat. n], 26 n.

51,109-113, no, 112,115,116,171,173, 248;

(by 1782; plaster; Schwerin), 109,112,113,

116; (n.d.; plaster; Berlin), 49 n. 53,109,112,

113; (n.d.; plaster; Gotha), 109,112,113; (n.d.;

plaster; Warsaw), 109,112; depicted in Boilly

paintings, 113,340 [cat. 66], 341,343 [fig. i]

other likenesses of: Caffieri's bust, in,

113 n. 16; Caffieri's statue, in; Mignard's

portrait: engraving after, by Audran, in, 111

[fig. 2]; print after, by Nolin, in

Monge family, 116,117

Monot, Martin-Claude, 95 n. 4

Montaiglon, Anatole de, 111-112

Montesquieu: Clodion's statue of, 18;

De l'esprit des lois, 52

Montgolfier, Joseph, Montigny's bust of, 208,

209 n. 12

Montgolfier, Joseph, and Etienne Montgolfier,

207

Houdon's double portrait of [cat. 34], 206,

207-209; depicted in Boilly painting, 208,

340 [cat. 66], 342; engravings after model

for: by De Launay, 208,208 [fig. i], 209;

by Roze le Noir, 208,209; gold medal after,

engraved by Gatteaux, 207, 209

Montigny, Lucas de, Joseph Montgolfier, 208,

209 n. 12

Montuda, 19, 286

Moreau-Desproux, Pierre-Louis, 130

Morpheus: (1771; plaster; Gotha), 30,32,34,37,

91, 92 [fig. i], 238,348; (1777; marble; Paris)

[cat. 7], 2-3, 6, 85 n. 5, 90, 91-95, 93,238,

285,349; Saint-Aubin's sketch of, 94

Morris, Gouverneur, 20

Mouchy, Louis-Philippe, 18, 95 n. 4;

Maréchal de Tourville, 289

Moutoni, Antoine, Chevalier Pierre-Terrail

Bayard, 354

multiples, 22-23

Naiad (lost), 18,349

Napoleon Bonaparte, 9, 260, 276, 293 n. 15,313,

323,327 n. 4,330,333,337,338,339,353

Houdon's busts of, 6, 9,316,323; (1806;

terracotta; Dijon) [cat. 62], 323-327,324,325,

327,329,333,353; (1808; marble; Versailles)

[cat. 63], 277,328,329-331' 331' 334,353;

Godecharle's bust after, 330 [fig. 2], 331

Houdon's colossal bronze statue of (1813; melted

down), 224 n. 5,323,326-327,353,354

other likenesses of: Bartolini's bust, 326,326

[fig. i]; Bosio's bust, 326,326 [fig. 2];

Canova's bust, 326, 330,330 [fig. i];

Chaudet's bust, 326; David's Crowning

of Josephine by Napoleon, 333; David's

portrait, 331 n. 4; Isabey's portrait, 331 n. 4

National Assembly, 25 n. 29,168-169,197,201,

260,351

National Convention, 244,309,351

National Guard, 201, 260,329

Natoire, Charles, 77, 63, 65,347,348

Nattier, Jean-Marc, portraits of Mme Adélaïde, 283

379

INDEX
Necker, Germaine (Mme de Staël), 193,197

Necker, Jacques, 26 n. 74,191,193,197-198,

295

Houdon's bust of, 9; (1789; marble; formerly

Hôtel de Ville, demolished), 197-198,200,

20l, 281, 282 n. 7,351; (1789; plaster;

Pregny-Chambésy), 198 [fig. i], 199, 200;

(1790; marble; Geneva) [cat. 32], 396,

197-200,200,201

other likenesses of: Boizot's bust, 198,198

[fig. 2], 199,200 n. lo, 282 n. 7;

Duplessis' portrait, 199,199 [fig. 3]

Necker, Mme Jacques, née Suzanne Curchod,

20,177,193,197

Negress, 241, 243,349. See also Head of a Negress

Nicolay, Aymard-Jean de, Houdon's bust of, 184,

188,188 [fig. i], 247

Nivernais, duc de, 295; Houdon's bust of, 24,

46,47 [fig. 6], 49 n. 53; in Menzel's drawing,

46,46 [fig. 5]

Noailles, Adrienne de, 257

Noailles, vicomte de, son of, Houdon's portrait

presumed to be of, 127,130 [fig. i]

Nolin, Jean-Baptist, print after Mignard,

Molière, ni

Nord, comte and comtesse du. See Paul I;

Maria Fedorovna

Orléans, Louis-Philippe-Joseph, due d'.

See Philippe Egalité

Orléans, Mme d', 69

Orlov, Prince Alexei, 23, 56

Ovid, Metamorphoses, 81, 91, 93

Painter's Studio, A (Boilly), 70 [fig. i], 71

Pajou, Augustin, 17,18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 n. 7,

130, 229, 352; Andouillé, 184; Basan,

25 n. 42; Bossuet, 18, 293 n. 6; Bufón (bust),

2i, 177,178, ijS [fig. i], 179; (statue), 177;

Descartes, 18; Nathalie de Laborde, 21; Little

Boy and Little Girl, 130,130 [figs. 2 and 3];

Louis XVI, 279,281 [fig. i]; Pascal, 18, 25 n. 7;

Psyche (1785; plaster), 19, 25 n. 19; (1790;

marble), 25 n. 19; Maréchal de Turenne,

25 n. 7;

Pandora (Roman), 32, 238

Pariseau, engravings after Houdon, L'Ecorché, 69

Pascal, Biaise, Pajou's statue of, 18, 25 n. 7

Pastoret, Claude-Emmanuel de,

Houdon's bust of, 352

Paul I, emperor of Russia (formerly prince of

Holstein-Gottorp; "comte du Nord"), 55, 56,

59 n. 26, 209 n. 14, 224

Peale, Charles Willson, George Washington, 263,

268 n. 5

Peasant Girl ofFrascati: (by 1769; plaster; Gotha),

30,31,37, 87, 88 [fig. i], 89; (1774; marble;

Paris) [cat. 6], 86,87-89, 89; (1775; marble;

St. Petersburg), 87, 89

Périac, François, 354

Périn-Salbreaux, Louis Lié, Mme Houdon

(miniature), 133,135 [fig. i]

Perrin, Paul, 137

Perrin, Raoul, 137,140, 234

Perrin family, 139,140 n. 16

Perron, Mme Auguste, 137,140

Perron family, 139

Peter I the Great, emperor of Russia, 51, 55;

Equestrian Monument qf(Falconet), 54, 56,57

[fig. 6], 58,307

Peter III, emperor of Russia, 51,59 n. i

Petite Lise, La, 237

Philippe Egalité (Louis-Philippe-Joseph

d'Orléans, duc de Chartres, 1752 -1785;

duc d'Orléans, 1785-1793), 19,44, 69, 229,

231,239,241,243,253,254,312,350

Philosophy Upholding the Rights of Man

and the Constitution, 244,351

Piccinni, Niccolo, 105

Pidansat de Mairobert, 54

Pierre, Jean-Baptiste, 18,225-229,230, 241,

289,349

Pigalle, Jean-Baptiste, 20, 26 n. 67, 33, 64,

117 n. 12,147-148, 212, 307; Denis Diderot,

147; Antoine Ferrein, 184; Georges-Martin

Guérin, 184; monument for the maréchal de

Saxe, 306; Nude Voltaire, 19-20,20 [fig. 2],

26 n. 67,109,157

Pilarre de Rozier, Jean-François, 207; Houdon's

bust of, 208

Pineu-Duval, Henry Jean, 136,137,313,353

Pingeron, 75

Pirón, Alexis, Caffieri's bust of, in

Polyeuktos, Demosthenes, Houdon's copy after, 37

Pompadour, Mme de, 230

Poncet, François-Marie, 174,175 n. 13

Portrait, Presumed to Be the Son of the Vicomte

de Noaiües, 127,130 [fig. i]

Potemkin, Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich,

60 n. 43

Prezel, Honoré Lancombe de, 230

Priest of the Lupercalia: (probably 1768; plaster;

Gotha) [cat. 5], 30,31,36,42, 81-85, 82, 84,

85, 91, 95 n. 14, 223, 237; Saint-Aubin's

drawing of, 81, 83 [fig. i], 85; (after 1777;

bronze; lost), 85 and n. 3

Prokofiev, 93; The Flight ofActaeon, 95 n. 14

Provence, comte and comtesse de,

Houdon's busts of, 285, 287 n. 10

Psyche (Pajou) (1785; plaster), 19; (1790; marble),

25n.i9

Quatremère de Quincy, 94,291

Queen ofSheba Presenting Gifts to Solomon, The,

347; in Boilly painting, 340,342

Quinault, Philippe, Caffieri's bust of, in

Rameau, Jean-Philippe, 97,105,106

Rantzau, Juliana Marianne von, 45

Raoul-Rochette, Désiré, 137

Rastrelli, Bartolomeo Francesco, 54

Raucourt, Mile, 97

Raynal, Guillaume, Abbé, 191

Regnaudin, Thomas. See Girardon, François,

and Thomas Regnaudin

Reichard, H.A.O., 204

Reiffenstein, Johann Friedrich, 44

Relief of a Priestess of Diana, 37

Restout, Jean-Bernard, 348; Sleep, 93, 93 [fig. 3]

Reverdil, Salomon, 193-194

Reynolds, Joshua, 53

Rheinsberg collection, 46,49 n. 53

Richardson, Samuel, Clarissa, 26 n. 78

Rigaud, Hyacinthe: Jean de La Fontaine, 115;

engraving after, by Edelinck, 115,116 [fig. i];

Maréchal de Tourvilk, 293 nn. 8, 9

Ripa, Cesare, 230

Rittenhouse, David, 271, 272

Robert, Hubert, 127,212,243,269

Robert, Jacques-Charles, 207

Robert, Marie-Noël, 207, 208

Robespierre, Houdon's life mask of, 312 n. 8

Robineau de Bougon, M., 146,148,151 n. 15

Rochambaud, comte de, 257

Rochette, Désire-Raoul, 353

Rochette, Raoul, 354

Rodde, Mattheus, 319

Rodde-Schlôzer, Dorothea von, 316,319,322 n. i

Houdon's busts of: (1801-1802; plaster;

Gottingen), 320,320 [fig. i], 322, 353;

(ca. 1803-1806; marble; Berlin) [cat. 61],

316,318,319-322,321,353; (before 1806;

plaster; fragment; Gottingen), 320 [fig. 2],

321-322

Rohan, cardinal de, 123-124,125; Houdon's

bust of, 22-23,26 nn. 54-55,350

Roland, Mme, 311

Roman works: Caracalla, 120,120 [fig. i]; Cicero,

146 [fig. 2], 147; commemorative bronze

coin for Claudius Gothicus, 43,43 [fig. i];

Hadrian, 33,33 [fig. 6], 37; Pandora, 32, 238

Roman works after Greek and Hellenistic works:

Antinous, 79, 79 [fig. 3]; Cupid and Psyche,

32, 238,239 [fig. 2]; Diana the Huntress, 217,

218 [fig. i], 223

Roman Youth, 31,32 [fig. 3]

Rouillard, Jean-Sébastien, General Dumouriez,

311,311 [fig. i]

380
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 8,46,52,167,168,337,

339; Confessions, 167; Contrat social, 167;

Emile, 167; La Nouvelle Hâoise, 167

Houdon's busts of, 6,147,171,179,194; (1778;

bronze; Paris), 26 n. 61,170; (1778; plaster;

Châalis) [cat. 26], 21, 26 n. 51,147,166,

167-170,170,171,173, 248,349,351; (1778;

plaster; Gotha), 42,170; (1778; plaster;

Schwerin), 46,170; (1778; terracotta;

Orléans), 116,169-170; (by 1789, Salon of;

marble), 147; (n.d.; formerly Rheinsberg,

lost), 49 n. 53; depicted in Boilly paintings

340 [cat. 66], 341,343 [fig. i]

Houdon's death mask of, 20,167,168 [fig. i],

169,349

Houdon's model for the proposed Panthéon

monument to, 168-169,351

La Tour's portrait of, engraving after,

by Saint-Aubin, 167,169 [fig. 2]

Roze le Noir, engraving after Houdon,

The Montgolfier Brothers, 208, 209

Rutxhiel, Henry-Joseph, 353

Sabrán, comtesse de, 295; Houdon's bust of, 46,

47 [fig- 7]' 49

 n

- 53» in Menzel's drawing, 46,

4^ [fig. 5]

Sade, marquis de, 18

Sage, Balthasar Georges, 281

Saint-Aubin, Augustin de, engravings

after Houdon: Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, 175;

Voltaire, 155,155 [fig. i]; Molière, 113

after Maurice-Quentin de La Tour, Jean-Jacques

Rousseau, 167,169 [fig. 2]

Saint-Aubin, Gabriel de, drawings and sketches

after Houdon, 289,348; Bust of Diana, 218,

218 [fig. 2], 219; Mme Paul-Louis Girardot de

Vermenoux (Portrait of Madame de ***), 191,

193 [fig. i], 195; Christoph Willibald Gluck,

107,107 [fig. 2]; Model for the Tomb of Prince

Aleksandr Mikhailovich Golitsyn, 306,306

[fig. 3]; Morpheus, 94; Priest of the Lupercalia,

81, 83 [fig. i], 85; Saint Bruno in a Niche, 77,

79 [fig-

 :]' 8°; Saint John the Baptist, 74

[figs. 2 and 3], 75,76

Saint Bruno: (1766-1767; marble; Rome),

25 n. 23, 31, 73, 75,77, 79 [fig. 2], 80, 348;

(probably 1766-1767; plaster; Gotha)

[cat. 4], 19,30,31,36,42,77-80, 78, 80, 91,

237; Saint-Aubin's drawing of, 77, 79 [fig. i],

80. See also Head of Saint Bruno

Saint Bruno (Slodtz), 19,77

Saint Bruno in a Niche (Saint-Aubin, drawing

after Houdon), 77, 79 [fig. i], 80

Saint John the Baptist: (1766-1767; plaster;

life-size with arm extended; Rome) [cat. 3],

63» 67, 72,73-76, 75,77,79, 217,348; (by

1768; plaster; over-life-size; destroyed), 73,

75; (by 1769; Salon model with arm raised;

lost), 75, 91; Saint-Aubin's drawings of, 74

[figs. 2 and 3], 75,76; (marble; not executed),

31, 64. See also Head of Saint John the Baptist

Saint Louis (Louis IX), 117 n. 10,281; Houdon's

statue of, 349

Saint Michael Striking Down the Angels

(medal proof) (J. Duvivier), 38

Saint Scholastica, 244,351

Saint-Wast, Anne-Charles Modenx de, 19,225,

23i' 235

Salon de l'Elysée (1798), 352

Salon du Louvre, 20, 52; (1767), 147; (1769), 31,

75' 77'

 87» 88, 91,141, 348; (1771), 8, 91, 94,

141,146,348; (1773), 54,146, 302; (1775),

18, 98,105,187,348; (1777), 18,19,127,

191,217,285,289,349; (1779), 18, in, 289,

349; (1781), in, 289-291,350; (1783), 18,

115,116, i2i, 225,350; (1785), 18,19, 60 n.

43, 225-229,350; (1787), in, 133, 269,

279-281,350; (1789), 147, 271,351; (1791),

2i, 25 n. 13,137, 229,351; (1793), 139, 229,

351; (1795)' 352; (TO6)' 352; (1798), 352;

(1800), 352; (1801), 173, 352; (1802), 353;

(1804), 275, 342,353; (1806), 139, 321,

323-325- 333Î (rôo8), 330, 333,353; (1812),

9, 338, 354; (1814), 354

Saltykov, Ivan Petrovich, Houdon's bust of,

59 n. 26

Saltykov, Nicolai Ivanovich, Houdon's bust of,

59 n. 26

Sand, Mme Maurice, née Marcelline Calamatta,

136,137,344

Sand family, 137,139,234

Santa Maria degli Angeli, Rome, 63,73,75

Sarasin, Jacob (Jacques), 123,124

Saxe, maréchal de, Pigalle's monument for, 306

Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg: court of, 41; ducal family,

see Charlotte Amalie; Ernst II; Friedrich III;

Louise Dorothea

Schlôzer, August Ludwig, 319

Schlozer, Dorothea von. See Rodde-Schlôzer

Schwerin collection, 45-46. See also

Friedrich Franz I

Sedaine, Michel-Jean, 55; Deloye's bust of,

copy after, by Fichet, 23

Séguier, M., 63,79,348

Shchedrin, Feodosy Fedorovich, 57,58, 60 n. 39;

Catherine II, 58, 60 n. 37; Hercuks, 57

Sherburne, John H., 253

Shubin, Fedot Ivanovich, Catherine II, 60 n. 43

Shubin, Fedot Ivanovich, and lakov Ivanovich

Zemelhak, after Houdon's model,

Tomb ofPiotr Mikhailovich Golitsyn, 307,

307 [fig. 4], 308

Simiand, Jacques, François-Pascal Haudry, 116,

117 n.14

Sleep (after Cochin and Gravelot engraving;

formerly attributed to Houdon), 95 n. 8

Sleep (Le Brun), 92 [fig. 2], 93, 95 n. 8

Sleep (Restout), 93, 93 [fig. 3]

Slodtz, Michel-Ange, 347; Iphigenia, 100 n. 17;

Saint Bruno, 19,77

Small Flayed Horse (unidentified), copy, 30, 35, 38

Small Head of Saint Bruno.

See Head of Saint Bruno

Société des beaux-arts, Montpellier, 22, 69,70,

109,113 n. 7,349,353

Society of thé Cincinnati, 25 n. i

Soubise, prince de, 123

Staël, Mme de, née Germaine Necker, 193,197

Standing Vestal See Vestal

Stanislaw Augustus II Poniatowski,

king of Poland, 52,109,113,120, 219, 233

Stroganov, Count Aleksandr Sergeevich, 54, 55,

146,155,305

Stroganov, Count Sergei Grigorievich, 54

Stroganov family, 230

Suard, Jean-Baptiste, 306

Sue, M., 64

Suffren, Pierre André, Bailli de, Houdon's bust

of, 49 n. 53,279

Summer (busts), 235; (1782; plaster; London art

market), 230,235; (after 1782; marble; Paris),

230, 230 [fig. 3], 235

Summer (statue): (1785; marble; Montpellier)

[cat. 40], 19, 225-235,228,234; (1785; marble

reduction), 225-229, 235

surgeons, sculpted portraits of, 184

Talleyrand, 116

Tallien, Mme, 333

Tassaert, Jean-Pierre-Antoine, 159

Terror, 201,313

Thellusson, Georges Tobie de, 191

Thellusson, Mme Georges Tobie de, née

Marie-Jeanne de Girardot, 26 n. 74,191

Therbouche, Mme, Diderot, 147; engraving after,

by Bertonnier, 147,147 [fig. 4]

Thiébault, Dieudonné, 159

Third Estate, 201,203, 271, 313

Thomire, Pierre-Philippe, 296

tombs. See entries at Golitsyn; Louise Dorothea

Tortebat, François, print series after.

See Le Pautre, Jean, and Louis de Châtillon

Tourville, Anne-Hilarion de Costentin,

maréchal de, 289, 293 n. 7

38i

INDEX
Houdon's statue of: (1781; marble; Versailles),

8,18,20,289-291,292 [fig. i], 292,349,

350; engraving after, by Le Beau, 292,292

[fig. 2]; (1783; terracotta reduction; Sèvres)

[cat. 52], 265, 288, 289-293,293; (1809;

biscuit porcelain; Versailles) [cat. 53], 265,

289-293,290,292,293

other likenesses of: Mouchy's statue, 289;

Rigaud's portrait, 293 nn. 8, 9

Trajan, Roman emperor, coins of, 302

Tronchin, Théodore, 191-193; Houdon's bust of,

26 n. 74,194

Turenne, maréchal de, Pajou's statue of (1783),

25 n. 7

Turgot, Jacques, 20; Houdon's bust of, 98,160,

187, 271, 285

Two littk terracotta birds, 33,37

U.S. Congress, 17, 263, 267, 268,350, 353

Vandeul, Mme de, née Diderot, 148-149,

173,307

Van Loo, Carle, 347

Van Loo, Louis-Michel, Diderot, 147,

147 [fig. 3], 149

Vanvitelli, Luigi, 73

Vassal de Saint-Hubert, 24

Vassé, Louis-Claude, 130,140 n. 14; after

Bouchardon, reduced version of Equestrian

Monument of Louis XV, 53 [fig. 3], 54

Vaubrun, marquise de, 27 n. 79

Venus de Medici, cast of the foot of (unidentified

sculptor), copy, 36,38

Vermenoux. See also Girardot de Vermenoux

Vermenoux, M. de, 212

Vernet, Claude-Joseph, 212

Vemet, Horace, Battle ofValmy and

Battle ofjemmapes, 312 n. i

Vestal (Standing Vestal): (by 1769; plaster; formerly Gotha), 30,31-32,32 [fig. 4], 36-37,

238; (1793) 351. See also Head of a Vestal

Victoire, Mme, 283, 286; Houdon's bust of, 21,

99,285, 285 [fig. 2], 286, 287 n. 9

Vien, Joseph-Marie, 63, 65

Vigée-Lebrun, Elisabeth, 251, 295; Brongniart

portraits, 127; Mme Adélaïde, 286

Villars, duc de, medal of (P.-S.-B. Duvivier), 38

Villars, maréchal de, medal of (J. Duvivier), 38

Villegagnon, comtesse de, 133,136 n. 5,350

Viller, Ja... de, attributed to, Cagliostro, 124,

124 [fig. 2]

Villermay, Eugène de, 137

Villermay, Mme Eugène de, née Berthe

de Moréal, 137

Villermay, Jean-Baptiste-Esprit Pelage Louyer de,

i37>353

Villers, Charles, 319

Villevieille, marquis de, 156 n. 5

Villoison, J.-B. Gaspard d'Ansse de, 44-45,106

Vincent, François-André, 354

Virginia, Commonwealth of, 17,19, 58, 257-259,

260, 263, 269,350

Vivant Denon, Dominique-, 179,325,329,

344 n. 3

Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet, called, 8, 9,

19, 46, 51, 54, 56, 98, ni, 120,153-154,

157-159,163,165 and nn. 3, 5; 167,171,

174,183, 248, 337, 339, 349; Irène, 153;

La Mon de César, 119,120

Houdon's busts of, 6,8, 9,46,54,147,171,179,

253,351

à la française: (1778; plaster; for

Catherine II, présent location unknown),

54,156,160,164; (1778; terracotta; for

Académie française), 160, 349; plaster

copies for members, 26 n. 52, m, 160,173,

349; (1778; terracotta; Orléans), 116,260

[fig. 2], 161; (after 1778; plaster; Ansbach),

160 [fig. i], 160-161; (1779; marble; Paris,

Comédie-Française), 153,160,349; (1779,

Salon of; terracotta), 156 n. 9,160, 349;

(1780; marble; Berlin) [cat. 24], 46, 22,119,

123,153,157-161,158,159,161,164,167,

171,173; (by 1789; plaster; Monticello), 160,

271; engraving after, 160 [fig. 3], 161

à l'antique: (1778; bronze; Berlin formerly,

lost), 165,165 [fig. 2]; (1778; marble; St.

Petersburg) [cat. 25], 22,50,54, in, 119,123,

153,162,163-165,165,167,171,349; (1778;

plaster; Gotha), 42,165,165 [fig. i]; (1779,

Salon of; terracotta), 156 n. 9,349

tête nue: (1778; bronze; Moscow), 54,156,

160,164; (1778; marble; Angers) [cat. 23],

22,26 n. 51,119,123,152,153-156,154,167,

171, 248, 338; (1778; marble; New York), 54,

59 n. 18,155,255 [fig. 2]; (ca. 1778), engraving

after, by Saint-Aubin, 155,155 [fig. i];

(n.d.; plaster; formerly Rheinsberg and

Berlin, lost), 49 n. 53,155

Houdon's seated sculpture of, 353; (1779,

Salon of; small model), 164, 349; (1780;

large model for Mme Denis), 164, 349,

350; (1781; marble; St. Petersburg), 8,

19-20, 53,53 [fig. 2], 54, 55,163,164,

181 n. 9, 338, 350; depicted in Boilly

paintings, 340 [cat. 66], 341,343 [fig. i]

Houdon's statue of [cat. 65], 6, 9,336,337-339,

338' 354

other likenesses of: Largillière's portrait, 160;

Lemoyne's bust, 153; Pigalle's nude statue,

19-20,20 [fig. 2], 26 n. 67,109,157

Walferdin, François-Hippolyte, 23,148,150,

249, 267

Walpole, Thomas, Mme, 133,136 n. 5

Washington, George, 20, 26 n. 65, 253, 254,257,

259, 260, 263, 269,350

Houdon's busts of, 6, 25 n. 29,198, 265-268,

269, 277,350; (1785; day; Mount Vemon),

58,154, 265,265 [fig. 2], 266-267; plaster

casts of, 267; (by 1787; plaster; Boston,

formerly Monticello), 260, 267, 271;

(late 17805; marble; Los Angeles) [cat. 47],

263-268, 264, 268, 269; (late 17803;

plaster; Washington), 265, 267; (late 17803;

terracotta; Paris), 265, 267, 268 n. 13; (1801;

marble; Versailles), 265, 267; (n.d.; formerly

Rheinsberg, lost), 49 n. 53, 267; depicted

in Boilly paintings, 267,340 [cat. 66],

343 [fig. i]; proposed Grand commission for

one to two hundred plasters, 22, 26 n. 50,

266, 267

Houdon's life mask of (1785; plaster;

New York), 247, 265, 265 [fig. i], 266,271

Houdon's statue of (1792; marble; Richmond),

6, 9,17,20,57,58,123,263,265,266 [fig. 3],

268 and n. u, 269,351,352; depicted in

Boilly paintings, 268,340 [cat. 66], 343 [fig. i]

other likenesses of: Brown's equestrian statue,

267; Duvivier's medal, after Houdon, 268;

Peale's portrait, 263, 268 n. 5

proposed equestrian statue of, 17,20, 25 n. 2,

58,263,350,353

Watelet, Claude-Henri, 174

Watüer, Emile, Alexandre Brongniart, 132 n. 16

West, Benjamin, 275

Winckelmann, Johann, 44, 211

Winter (La Frileuse), 6, 352; (1781; terracotta;

Montpellier), 225,229 [fig. i], 233; (1783;

marble; Montpellier) [cat. 38], 16,18,

225-235,226,232,350; (1785; marble reduction), 18,225-229,234,350; (1787; bronze;

New York) [cat. 39], 25 n. 13,225-235,227,

232,233,350; (1793?; terracotta; Paris), 229,

229 [fig. 2], 234, 351; depicted in Boilly

paintings, 233,340 [cat. 66], 341,343 [fig. i].

See also Ceres (Winter)

Winter (Falconet), 230 [fig. 4]

Woman Stepping Out of Her Bath (lost), 18

Zach, Franz Xaver von, 204

382
Photographie Credits

Cover illustration: © The Detroit Institute of Arts. Plates—cats.

i, 3: © Foto Vasari Roma; cats. 4, 5,55, 56: Fotograf-Fotodesign,

Lutz Ebhardt, Wechmar; cat. 6: © Photothèque des musées de

la Ville de Paris (cliché: Joffre); cats. 7, 8,15,16,17,19, 51, 57:

Photo RMN —Le Mage; cats. 9,10: Aufnahme Angelika Kittel;

cat. 13: © Collection Comédie-Française (P. Lorette); cats. 14,

36: © Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington

(photographer Lyle Peterzell); cat. 18: © Worcester Art Museum;

cat. 20: Photo RMN —Franck Raux; cat. 22: Nationalmuseum,

Stockholm (photographer Erik Cornelius, 2002); cats. 23, 58:

© Musées d'Angers (photographer Pierre David); cat. 24: ©

Angelika Fischer, Fotografin, Berlin; cat. 26: Studio B. Cohen,

Photo de la Halle, Senlis; cats. 29, 50, 53, 63, 64: © photographer Martine Beck Coppola; cat. 30: © Ed Watkins Photography; cat. 32: photographer Sacha Waeber; cat. 37: Fundaçao

Calouste Gulbenkian—Museu, Arquivo Fotográfico (photographer Margaride Rauiallu [front] and Carlos Ofevedo [back]); cats.

38, 40: © Musée Fabre, Montpellier (cliché: Frédéric Jaulmes,

2002); cat. 39: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; cats. 41,

47: © Museum Associates/LACMA; cat. 43: photographer Graydon Wood (front, 2002; back, 1997; signature, 1999); cat. 44:

photographer Lyle Peterzell; cat. 45: © Jay Beebe, Harvard University Art Museums; cat. 46: photographer Matthew Ferrari;

cat. 48: © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; cat. 49: © The Detroit

Institute of Arts; cat. 52: Photo RMN —Martine Beck Coppola;

cat. 54: photographer Daniel Lindner, 2002; cat. 59: © Musée

Lorrain, Nancy (photographer P. Mignot); cat. 61: color photography by A. Voigt, 2001, black and white by Steinkopf; cat.

62: © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (photographer François

Jay); cat. 65: © Centre des monuments nationaux, Paris (photographer Caroline Rose); cat. 66: © J. Lehuby.

Comparative illustrations—Scherf essay, figs, i, 2; cat. 36, fig.

2; and cat. 62, fig. 2: © Photo RMN —Hervé Lewandowski;

Scherf essay, figs. 3, 5; cats. 15-16, fig. 4; and cat. 34, fig. 2: ©

Photo RMN —Le Mage; Poulet, Mathies, Frank essay, fig. 2 ©

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (photographer François Jay, 2001);

Mathies essay, fig. 2; and cats. 55-56, fig. la-b: FotografFotodesign, Lutz Ebhardt, Wechmar; Mathies essay, figs. 6, 7:

© Foto Marburg / Art Resource, NY; Frank essay, fig. i: ©

Photothèque des musées de la Ville de Paris (cliché); fig. 2:

Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; fig. 4: © Scala / Art Resource,

NY; fig. 5: The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; fig. 6:

© Giraudon / Art Resource, NY; cat. 4, fig. i; cat. 5, fig. 3; and

cats. 19-22, fig. 2: © Archivio Vasari Roma; cat. 5, fig. 2; and cats.

19 -22, fig. 3: © Photo RMN — René-Gabriel Ojeda; cat. 7, fig. 3:

© The Cleveland Museum of Art; cat. 8, fig. 2; cat. n, fig. i; and

cat. 12, fig. 2: © Collections de la Comédie-Française; cat. 10,

fig. 2: Photoatelier Louis Held; cat. 13, fig. i; cat. 37, fig. 2; and

cat. 41, fig. 2: © Alinari / Art Resource, NY; cat. 14, fig. 2: photographer M. Babey; cat. 17, fig. i; and cat. 50, fig. 2: © Photo

RMN - Gérard Blot; cat. 17, fig. 2: © The Collection of the Frick

Art Museum, Pittsburgh; cat. 17, fig. 3: © Photo RMN-G. Blot

and C. Jean / Art Resource, NY; cat. 24, fig. i: © Foto Marburg

/ Art Resource, NY; cat. 25, fig. i: from E. F. Bange, Bildwerke in

Bronze (Berlin-Leipzig, 1923), 45, no. 2932; cat. 26, fig. la-b:

Studio Mandanis, Vésanaz, Switzerland; cat. 27, fig. 2: © Photo

RMN —René-Gabriel Ojeda / Art Resource, NY; cat. 30, fig. i:

photographer Michael Bodycomb; cat. 31, fig. 3: © Gad BorelBoissonnas Photographe, Geneva; cat. 35, fig. 2; cat. 42, fig. 3;

and cats. 52-53, fig. i: © Photo RMN / Art Resource, NY; cat.

36, fig. i: Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; cats. 38-40, fig. i: Cliché

Frédéric Jaulmes; cats. 38-40, fig. 2: © Photo RMN —C. Jean

/ Art Resource, NY; cats. 38-40, fig. 3: Musée Nissim de

Camondo, Paris (photographer Hugo Maertens); cat. 41, fig. i:

© Scala / Art Resource, NY; cat. 42, fig. i: from Réau 1964, vol.

2, pi. XVIII, ii B 75; cat. 44, fig. i: © Museum of Fine Arts,

Boston; cats. 45-46, fig. i, and cat. 47, fig. 3: Courtesy of the

Library of Virginia; cat. 45-46, fig. 2: © Photo RMN —J. L'Hoir

/ Art Resource, NY; cat. 48, fig. i: © Collection of The New-York

Historical Society; cat. 49, fig. 2: © The Metropolitan Museum

of Art, NY; cat. 50, fig. i: Photo RMN-Bulloz; cat. 51, fig. i: ©

Photo RMN-J. G. Berizzi; cat. 51, fig. 2: © The Trustees of the

383
Wallace Collection, London; cat. 57, figs. 1-2: © Musée du

Louvre, documentation du département des sculptures; cat. 58,

fig. i: © Photo RMN-D. Arnaudet / G. Blot; cat. 62, fig. i: ©

Photo RMN-Gérard Blot / Art Resource, NY; cat. 63, fig. i:

Photo RMN-C. Jean; cat. 63, fig. 2: © ACL -Brussells; cat.

64, fig. i: © Photo RMN — D. Arnaudet, J. Schormans; cat. 64,

fig. 2: © Photo RMN— D. Arnaudet; cat. 66, fig. i: from Réau

1964, vol. 2, pi. CLIX.I2; cat. 66, fig. 2: photographer LaurentSully Jaulmes.

384