Jean-Antoine Houdon

Jean -Antoine Houdon (* March 20, 1741 in Versailles, † July 15, 1828 in Paris) was a French sculptor of classicism.

Life and work

His works are exhibited in famous museums such as the Louvre in Paris, the Liebighaus in Frankfurt am Main, the Bode Museum in Berlin and the Musée Fabre in Montpellier and in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, but also in the palace peace, in Gotha, the the largest collection of his early works houses. He has worked in France, Germany, Russia and Italy, and was the most successful portrait sculptor of his time. He knew how hardly no other sculptor to capture the fine features of his models and to shape their character in marble.

In Weimar classicism, he went so far as a Carl August or completed also Anna Amalia of Brunswick- Wolfenbüttel Goethe their castles with his works. Thus, inter alia, managed Carl August a portrait of the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, whom he had met in 1775 itself. In Wittumspalais Anna Amalia are Houdon's busts of Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau, which express the appreciation of the French Enlightenment.

Jean -Antoine Houdon was a member of the Federation of Masons and a member of the so-called Philosophenloge Neuf Sœurs in Paris.

Houdon married in 1786. Come from his marriage three daughters, who frequently were his models.

Works

Exhibition

• 2009/2010: Jean -Antoine Houdon. The anniversary exhibition, Liebighaus, Frankfurt am Main