Houdon, Jean-Antoine (zhäN-äNtwän`

dôN`), 1741–1828, French neoclassical sculptor. He studied with Michel Ange Slodtz, Lemoyne Lemoyne, Jean Baptiste (zhäN bäptēst` ləmwän`), 1704–78, French sculptor.
..... Click the link for more information. , and Pigalle Pigalle, Jean Baptiste (zhäN bätēst` pēgäl`), 1714–85, French sculptor.
..... Click the link for more information. , took the Prix de Rome at the age of 20, and spent four years in Italy. Many of his later works reveal his study of classical form, e.g., the marble Diana (St. Petersburg) and The Bather (Metropolitan Mus. of Art, N.Y.C.). He quickly became famous in Paris for his extraordinarily accurate portrait sculptures and received commissions from all over the world. In 1785 he visited the United States briefly and stayed at Mt. Vernon while making studies for his statue of Washington (capitol, Richmond, Va.). Among his portrait busts are those of Jefferson, Franklin, Diderot, Rousseau, John Paul Jones, Napoleon, Josephine, Lafayette, Molière, Mirabeau, Buffon, and Prince Henry of Prussia, and he also sculpted a full-length statue of Voltaire (Comédie Française). He succeeded not only in creating sculptural documents of his time, but in developing a type of portraiture remarkable for its elegance, measured realism, and depiction of individuality. Houdon exerted a strong influence over European and American sculptors for several generations.

Bibliography

See A. L. Poulet, Jean-Antoine Houdon: Sculptor of the Enlightenment (2004)

Houdon, Jean-Antoine

“Diana,” bronze sculpture by Houdon, c. 1777; in the Louvre, Paris

(credit: Giraudon—Art Resource/EB Inc.)

(born March 20, 1741, Versailles, Fr.—died July 15, 1828, Paris) French sculptor. He studied with Jean-Baptiste Pigalle in Paris and in 1761 won the Prix de Rome. In Rome (1764–68) he achieved immediate fame with an anatomical study of a standing man (c. 1767), casts of which were widely used in art academies. He became a member of the Royal Academy in Paris (1777) with his reclining Morpheus. He produced numerous religious and mythological works that are definitive expressions of the decorative 18th-century Rococo style of sculpture. His greatest strength was in capturing the individuality of his portrait subjects, including such luminaries as Denis Diderot, Catherine II the Great, Benjamin Franklin, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Voltaire. In the U.S. he made a marble statue of George Washington (1788). The vividness of physiognomy and character in his busts places him among the greatest portrait sculptors in history.