Jean-Antoine Houdon

File:Paris art deco boilly houdon.jpg, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.]]

Houdon was born in Versailles, on 20 March 1741.{{sfn|Hart|Biddle|1911|p=3}}

In 1752, he entered the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, where he studied with René-Michel Slodtz, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, and Jean-Baptiste Pigalle.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} From 1761 to 1764, he studied at the École royale des élèves protégés.{{sfn|Murray|2004}}

Houdon won the Prix de Rome in 1761, but was not greatly influenced by ancient and Renaissance art in Rome. His stay in the city is marked by two characteristic and important productions: the superb écorché{{cite web|url=http://www.artcyclopedia.com/feature-2003-06-Houdon-Ecorche.html|title=Jean-Antoine Houdon: l'Ecorche (Flayed Man)|website=artcyclopedia.com}} (1767), an anatomical model which has served as a guide to all artists since his day, and the statue of Saint Bruno in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri in Rome.

After four years in Italy, Houdon returned to Paris.{{sfn|Hart|Biddle|1911|pp=7–8}}

He submitted Morpheus to the Salon of 1771.{{sfn|Herbermann|1913}} He developed his practise of portrait busts.

He became a member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture in 1771, and a professor in 1778. In 1778, he modeled Voltaire, producing a portrait bust with wig for the Comédie-Française; one for the Palace of Versailles, and one for Catherine the Great.{{sfn|Hart|Biddle|1911|p=36}}

In 1778, he joined the masonic lodge Les Neuf Sœurs, where he later met Benjamin Franklin, and John Paul Jones.{{sfn|Marshall|Kaufman|Johnston|2005}}

For Salon of 1781, he submitted a Diana which was refused without drapery.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

Houdon's portrait sculpture of Washington was the result of a specific invitation by Benjamin Franklin to cross the Atlantic in 1785, specifically to visit Mount Vernon, so that Washington could model for him. Washington sat for wet clay life models and a plaster life mask.

These models served for many commissions of Washington, including the standing figure commissioned by the Virginia General Assembly, for the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

Numerous variations of the Washington bust were produced, portraying him variously as a general in uniform, in the classical manner showing chest musculature, and as Roman Consul Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus clad in a toga.

In the 1780s, Houdon produced two semi-nude sculptures, Winter and Bather.{{Cite web|url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/jahd/hd_jahd.htm|title=Jean Antoine Houdon (1741–1828)|website=metmuseum.org|date=October 2008 |access-date=17 May 2018}}

Perceived as bourgeois for his connections to the court of Louis XVI, he fell out of favour during the French Revolution, although he escaped imprisonment.

Houdon returned to favor during the French Consulate and Empire, being taken on as one of the original artistic team for what became the Column of the Grande Armée at Wimille.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

He was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, on 17 December 1804.{{sfn|Hart|Biddle|1911|p= 264}} He was created a Chevalier de l'Empire in 1809, which was made hereditary by letters patent in 1816.Image:George Washington 1890 Issue Lake-2c.jpgHoudon died in Paris on 15 July 1828,{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} and was interred at the Montparnasse Cemetery.{{cite book|title=La sculpture dans les cimetières de Paris|author=Jouin, Henry|location=Mâcon|page=223|language=fr|date=1898|url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9730153t}}

On 1 July 1786, he married Marie-Ange-Cecile Langlois;{{sfn|Hart|Biddle|1911|p=274}} they had three daughters: Sabine, Anne-Ange, and Claudine.{{sfn|Hart|Biddle|1911|p=256}}

Houdon's sculptures were used as models for the engravings used on various U.S. postage stamps of the late 19th and early 20th centuries which depict Washington in profile.[http://www.arago.si.edu/index.asp?con=1&cmd=1&tid=2032672 Smithsonian National Postal Museum]

File:Bust of the Marquis de Miromesnil, 1775 CE. From Paris, France. By Jean-Antoine Houdon. The Victoria and Albert Museum, London.jpg|Bust of Armand Thomas Hue de Miromesnil, 1775, Victoria and Albert Museum

File:HoudonWashingtonNPG.jpg|Bust of Washington based on a life mask cast in 1786, National Portrait Gallery

File:P1020216 Musée Angers Houdon marbre Voltaire rwk.JPG|Bust of Voltaire, 1778, Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Angers

File:Jean-Antoine Houdon, Voltaire, 1778, NGA 1266.jpg|Voltaire, 1778, National Gallery of Art

File:Juliette Récamier. Buste de Houdon, d'après Chinard. Vue de face.jpg|Bust of Madame Récamier after Joseph Chinard

File:Jean-Antoine Houdon's George Washington.jpg |George Washington, Virginia State Capitol complex

File:Houdon Jean Antoine, Voltaire assis, terre cuite, Musée Fabre, Montpellier.jpg|Seated Voltaire, Musée Fabre

File:Houdon Jean Antoine, L'écorché bras levé, Musée Fabre, Montpellier.jpg|Skinned Man, Musée Fabre

File:Houdon Jean Antoine, La frileuse 2.jpg|Winter, 1783, Musée Fabre

File:SculpturesMuséeFabre26a Houdon Eté.jpg|The Summer, 1785, Fabre Museum

File:The Gulbenkian Museum (42416563422).jpg|Diana, 1780, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum

File:Bust of Anne-Marie-Louise Thomas de Domangeville de Sérilly, Comtesse de Pange (1780).jpg|Bust of Anne-Marie-Louise Thomas de Domangeville de Sérilly, Comtesse de Pange (1780), Art Institute of Chicago

File:Madame Houdon - Jean-Antoine Houdon - musée du Louvre.jpg|Madame Houdon, Louvre

File:Jean-Antoine Houdon - Portrait of Christoph Willibald Gluck - 1988.59 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif|Bust of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Cleveland Museum of Art

• Neoclassicism in France
• Washington-Franklin Issues

{{reflist}}

• {{citation|first=Arnason H. |last=Harvard|title=The Sculptures of Houdon|location=London|publisher=Phaidon|year=1975}}
• {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Houdon, Jean Antoine}}
• {{Catholic|no-icon=1|prescript=|wstitle=Jean-Antoine Houdon}}
• {{citation |editor-last=Murray |editor-first=Christopher John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bXnMs-YDEF4C&q=houdon |title=Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760–1850: A-K |volume=1 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2004 |isbn=9781579584238}}
• {{cite book|last1=Poulet|first1=Ann L.|last2=Scherf|first2=Guilhem|name-list-style=and|title=Jean-Antoine Houdon: Sculptor of the Enlightenment|type=exhibition catalogue|location=Washington, D.C.; Chicago, IL|publisher=National Gallery of Art, in association with the University of Chicago Press|year=2003|isbn=0-226-67647-1|lccn=2003-2220|oclc=1015315163|url=https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/jean-antoine-houdon.pdf}}
• {{citation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=avec_fQkUnAC&q=houdon|title= Memoirs of the Life and Works of Jean Antoine Houdon: The Sculptor of Voltaire and of Washington|first1=Charles Henry|last1=Hart|first2=Edward|last2=Biddle|publisher=Princeton University|year=1911|isbn= 9781425499891}}; Kessinger Publishing, 2006, {{ISBN|9781425499891}}
• {{citation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jfq5Tp0nq98C&pg=PA579|title=France and the Americas: Culture, Politics, And History

|editor1-first=Bill|editor1-last=Marshall|editor2-first=Will|editor2-last=Kaufman|editor3-first=Cristina|editor3-last=Johnston|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2005|isbn=9781851094110}}

{{commons category|Jean-Antoine Houdon}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060516233920/http://www.scultura-italiana.com/Galleria_Estero/Houdon%20Jean-Antoine/index.html Virtual Gallery]
• [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/jahd/hd_jahd.htm Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828)] (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History)
• [http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15324coll10/id/56268/rec/16 Art and the empire city: New York, 1825–1861], an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Houdon (see index)
• {{FrenchSculptureCensus}}

{{Authority control (arts)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Houdon, Jean Antoine}}

Category:1741 births

Category:1828 deaths

Category:People from Versailles

Category:18th-century French sculptors

Category:French male sculptors

Category:19th-century French sculptors

Category:Members of the Académie des beaux-arts

Category:Prix de Rome for sculpture

Category:People of the French Revolution

Category:Les Neuf Sœurs

Category:French Freemasons

Category:Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery

Category:19th-century French male artists

Category:18th-century French male artists

Category:Knights of the First French Empire