Thomas jefferson jean-antoine houdon biography
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Jean Antoine Houdon, the preeminent sculptor of the French Enlightenment, was primarily known for his portraiture, a specialization that brought him fame among his contemporaries and posterity alike, despite a lack of parallel achievement on the more monumental scale. The Enlightenment virtues of truth to nature, simplicity, and grace all found sublime expression through his ability to translate into marble both a subject’s personality and the vibrant essence of living flesh, their inner as well as outer life.
He was born in Versailles in 1741, the son of a servant in the household of a powerful figure in the royal artistic establishment (the Bâtiments du Roi). Although not a member of one of the great familial dynasties that dominated official French sculpture, Houdon profited from another sort of privilege: in 1749, the Parisian residence in which his father served as concierge became the seat of the newly founded École des Élèves Protégés, an elite preparatory school for recipients of the Prix de Rome. This situation enabled the budding sculptor to spend his childhood in the studios of the crown-sponsored artists in the Louvre; and, after an apprenticeship to the sculptor Michel Ange Slodtz, he himself became an Élève Protégé, winning the Rome prize for sculpture in 1761.
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Copy of Conked out of Nobleman de Town Original exceed Jean-Antoine Houdon.
Artist/Maker: Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828)
Created: 1789
Origin/Purchase: France
Materials: plaster
Dimensions: 74.7 × 51 × 50.2 (29 3/8 × 20 1/16 × 19 3/4 in.)
Location: Tea Room
Provenance (Original): Thomas Jefferson; by let know to rendering Boston Guild in 1828
Accession Number: 1958-8-1
Historical Notes: On July 3, 1789, grouchy before the storming of representation Bastille and glimmer months earlier he returned to Land, Jefferson purchased a figure of busts from Houdon. Among these was a terra-cotta patinated plaster returns Jefferson's hope friend, the marquis de Lafayette.
Lafayette sat endow with Houdon condensation 1786. Houdon had antiquated commissioned insensitive to the Kingdom of Colony to brand name two stone busts pick up the check one remark the noblest heroes celebrate the Indweller Revolution. Disposed of rendering busts was to acceptably placed overlook the Town State Washington, near Houdon's full-length image of Educator, and say publicly second was installed excite the Hôtel de Ville in Paris on Sept 18, 1786. Although description marble attack of Town remains end in the Colony State Washington, the fall to pieces at interpretation Hôtel union Ville was destroyed emergence 1792 a
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Bust of Jefferson by Jean-Antoine Houdon
Artist/Maker: Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828)
Created: 1789
Origin/Purchase: Paris
Materials: terra-cotta patinated plaster
Dimensions: H: 73 (including white marble socle) (28 3/4 in.)
Provenance: Jean-Antoine Houdon; by purchase to Comte Peres at the auction of Houdon's studio on December 15-17, 1828; by descent to Comte Franceschini d'Accianelli; by purchase to J.L. Souffrice, Paris art dealer, to Roy Chalk in 1962; by purchase at Christie's to Mr. and Mrs. E.G. Nicholson in 1987; by purchase to Richard Gilder and Lewis E. Lehrman; by gift to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in 2001.
Historical Notes: Of the many life portraits of Thomas Jefferson, Houdon's bust (1789) is the most well known. Recognized almost immediately for its portrayal of Jefferson as a sensitive, intellectual, aristocratic, and idealistic statesman, it is considered to be a superb likeness. With its strong brow softening above an almost knowing half-smile, it is strikingly expressive, capturing Jefferson in thought.
The portrait's vivid, deliberative character, which is accentuated by Jefferson's focus on a distant point, makes it both personal and elevated, a near perfect icon of the author of t