Jean-Antoine Houdon

Jean-Antoine Houdon, a French neoclassical sculptor, lived from 20 March 1741 to 15 July 1828. He gained renown for his portrait busts and statues capturing Enlightenment-era philosophers, inventors, and political figures.

Born in Versailles, Houdon began his studies in 1752 at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture under René-Michel Slodtz, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, and Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. From 1761 to 1764, he attended the École royale des élèves protégés. Although he won the Prix de Rome in 1761, ancient and Renaissance art in Rome left little mark on him. While there, he produced two key works: an anatomical model called the *écorché* (1767), which later guided artists, and a statue of Saint Bruno for Rome’s Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. After four years in Italy, he returned to Paris.

At the 1771 Salon, he submitted *Morpheus*, and soon built a practice around portrait busts. He joined the Académie de peinture et de sculpture in 1771 and became a professor in 1778. That same year, he modeled Voltaire, creating a wigged bust for the Comédie-Française, one for Versailles, and another for Catherine the Great. In 1778, he also entered the masonic lodge Les Neuf Sœurs, where he met Benjamin Franklin and John Paul Jones. For the 1781 Salon, he submitted *Diana*, which was rejected for lacking drapery.

In 1785, Benjamin Franklin invited Houdon to cross the Atlantic specifically to visit Mount Vernon, so George Washington could sit for him. Washington posed for wet clay models and a plaster life mask. These studies served multiple commissions, including a standing figure for the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond. Variations of the Washington bust showed him as a uniformed general, with bare chest musculature in classical style, or as Roman Consul Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus in a toga. During the 1780s, Houdon also created two semi-nude works, *Winter* and *Bather*.

His ties to Louis XVI’s court made him seem bourgeois, and he lost favor during the French Revolution, though he avoided prison. Under the Consulate and Empire, his reputation revived, and he joined the original artistic team for the Column of the Grande Armée at Wimille. He became a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur on 17 December 1804, and a Chevalier de l’Empire in 1809, a title made hereditary in 1816. Houdon died in Paris on 15 July 1828 and was buried at Montparnasse Cemetery.

He married Marie-Ange-Cecile Langlois on 1 July 1786; they had three daughters: Sabine, Anne-Ange, and Claudine. His sculptures later served as models for engravings on late-19th- and early-20th-century U.S. postage stamps showing Washington in profile.