(George Washington Historical Bust
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George Washington Historical Bust
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George Washington (1732-1799) George Washington played one of the most critical roles in the struggle for American freedom. As commander in chief of the Continental Army, president of the Constitutional Convention, and first president of the United States, Washington was known for his resolute honesty, courage, and devotion to his country. This authentically detailed bust of George Washington is based on an original sculpted by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828) and presented as a gift to Washington. Houdon was one of the most celebrated portrait sculptures of his day. He was commissioned by kings and great men all over Europe to render their likenesses in stone.
Sale - The Perfect Holiday Gift - Amazon Exclusive ! - Large Benjamin Franklin 11 Inch Bust - Founding Father
(Amazon Exclusive - we are the only store Authorized to se...)
Amazon Exclusive - we are the only store Authorized to sell this bust
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Bust of Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)
Based on a sculpture by Jean-Antoine Houdon
Signed and Dated 1778
Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828) was one of the most celebrated portrait sculptures of his day. Renowned for his classical sculptures of the goddess Diana, Cicero, Rousseau, and Voltaire, the French sculptor was commissioned by kings and great men all over Europe to render their likeliness in stone. This authentically detailed portrait bust of Benjamin Franklin is based on an original created by Houdon for Franklin, during his extended stay in France. The original was signed by Houdon and dated 1778.
Benjamin Franklin, Citizen of the World, was a self-educated man with humble beginnings who became a successful businessman, celebrated foreign diplomat, and American statesman. Franklin's vision for equality and freedom of speech made him a driving force in the formation of American principles. No other American was more instrumental than he in the birth of our American nation.
Thomas Jefferson Bust Statue - Founding Father - Great Americans Collection
(President Thomas Jefferson Bust
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President Thomas Jefferson Bust
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Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) Based on a sculpture by Jean-Antoine Houdon Regarded as one of this country's foremost political leaders and diplomats, Thomas Jefferson served his country for nearly five decades. As a member of the House of Burgesses and Continental Congress, Governer of Virginia, ambassador to France, and third president of the United States, Jefferson was a powerful advocate of liberty and religious freedom. This authentically detailed sculpture is a miniature version of a portrait bust of Thomas Jefferson molded by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828). Houdon was one of the most celebrated portrait sculptures of his day. He was commissioned and grat men all over Europe to render their likeness in stone.
Sale - Ben Franklin Bust - Founding Father -The Perfect Gift
(Ben Franklin Historical Bust
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Ben Franklin Historical Bust
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Benjamin Franklin (1705-1790) Based on a sculpture by Jean-Antoine Houdan Signed and Dated 1778 - Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828) was one of the most celebrated portrait sculptures of his day. kings and great men all over Europe commissioned the French Sculpture. This authentically detailed portrait bust of Benjamin Franklin is based on an original created by Houdon Benjamin Franklin, Citizen of the World, was a self educated man with humble beginnings who became a successful businessman, celebrated foreign diplomat, and American Statesman. Franklin's vision for equality and freedom of speech made him a driving force in the formation of American principles. No other American was more instrumental than he in the birth of our American nation.
Jean-Antoine Houdon was a French neoclassical sculptor.
Background
He was born in Versailles, on 25 March 1741. He was born in the house of a rich nobleman for whom his father worked as caretaker; his mother's family were peasants and gardeners. In 1749 his father became caretaker of a newly established government art academy, where Houdon grew up.
Education
From the age of 15 he began to study under Michel Ange Slodtz, one of the finest sculptors in France. Later, when Houdon won a fellowship to the French Academy, his teachers included the painter Carle Vanloo and François Dandré Bardon, the historian of ancient Rome.
In 1764 Houdon won a fellowship to the French Academy in Rome, where he studied until 1768. In this city with its abundant ancient ruins, where the French rococo style seemed remote and new evidence of Roman civilization was just then being uncovered in excavations, he set the main direction of his art.
Houdon also studied anatomy in Rome. Working under the direction of a surgeon, he learned the components of the body directly by dissecting corpses.
Career
The strong current of realism in Houdon's art is nowhere more apparent than in the anatomical statue called L'Écorché, or The Flayed Man (1767). There are endless copies. In his day no art school was complete without a bronze casting of this figure.
Houdon left one masterpiece in Rome, a colossal marble St. Bruno for the Carthusian monks of S. Maria degli Angeli (1767).
Houdon returned to Paris in 1768. The sculpture he brought with him he exhibited at the Salon the following year. The critics liked his work, and his career seemed well launched, but the really big commissions, the ones for the King, somehow failed to arrive. Instead Houdon found his patrons among foreigners, the wealthy bourgeoisie, and the intellectuals.
Through the recommendations of the Encyclopedist Denis Diderot and the literary critic Baron Melchior von Grimm, both of whom admired his work, Houdon soon began to develop an international clientele. An introduction from Baron Grimm won Houdon a commission in 1771 to do a funeral monument for one of the dukes of Saxe-Gotha. In the years that followed, he made busts and medallions of almost all the members of the duke's family. Eventually his patronage extended across Europe, including (besides France) Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, and Russia.
The large seated marble statue of Voltaire (1781) is Houdon's most famous work. The aged philosopher, draped in loose robes to disassociate him from any specific time or place, leans forward in his chair and turns as if about to speak. His withered fragile body seems to vibrate with life, as if the erosion of the flesh lets the spirit shine out brighter. Across the face a sardonic smile is breaking; deep shadows give the eyes extraordinary intensity. In almost all of Houdon's portraits the eyes seem to sparkle, and they look out at us with disconcerting intensity.
Frederick the Great bought two of Houdon's busts of his friend Voltaire. Stanislas Poniatowski, the last king of Poland, made a collection of plaster casts of Houdon's portraits of great men: Jean Jacques Rosseau, Alexander the Great, Molière, and Voltaire. Acting on the advice of Baron Grimm, Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, acquired two of Houdon's most famous sculptures: a graceful marble statue, Diana as Goddess of the Hunt (1780), and a variant of Houdon's magnificent marble statue of Voltaire.
Houdon's first connections with America came through his friendship with Benjamin Franklin, of whom he executed a number of portraits. The most famous version (1778) shows an unpretentious old man, simply dressed, wrinkled and rather bald, but also contemplative, benevolent, and wise. Three years later, probably at the suggestion of Franklin, Houdon was asked to do a bust of John Paul Jones.
In 1781 the state of Virginia commissioned Houdon to do a bust of Lafayette to be given to the city of Paris in gratitude for Lafayette's help during the Revolutionary War. Four years later, when the state of Virginia wanted a commemorative statue of Washington, they called on Houdon again. This time it was Jefferson, then American ambassador to France, who handled the negotiations. In 1785 Houdon sailed for America—the first European sculptor to go there. He spent a fortnight at Mount Vernon, where he took a life mask of Washington and made a series of clay studies, and then returned to France. The marble statue, showing the general dressed as an 18th-century gentleman, stands in the Virginia State Capitol at Richmond. Other portraits Houdon made of famous Americans include busts of Jefferson (1789) and Robert Fulton (1803).
The latter part of Houdon's life was not very happy. Tthe new art dictator, Jacques Louis David, opposed him even to the point of having his studio searched. Inevitably Houdon was cut off from official patronage. One disappointment followed another as each successive commission eluded him. Worst of all was his failure to be asked to execute the memorial the government planned for Rousseau, whose writings had provided so much of the inspiration for the Revolution. Here being passed over was especially bitter, because Houdon alone possessed a death mask of the philosopher, which he had made immediately after Rousseau's death.
In 1800 the Napoleonic era dawned, but for Houdon there was little improvement. While 15 years earlier he had been thought of as the greatest sculptor in Europe, now he was considered out of date. Neoclassicism was all the rage. Houdon was still respected—he was one of the first artists to be made (in 1803) a cavalier of the newly created French Legion of Honor. But there was little demand for his art.
In 1814 he stopped working altogether. Two years later, when the new government finally offered him a commission to do a statue, he refused. In 1823 his wife died. He himself lived on for 5 more years, but only as a shell. Arterial sclerosis was causing progressive damage to his brain. Death came the following year on July 15.
The Revolutionary period from 1789 to 1800 was especially difficult. Coming himself from a family that was extremely poor, Houdon was an enthusiastic supporter of the new government and its Declaration of the Rights of Man. But because of his associations with the old regime, he was suspected of being a counterrevolutionary.
Membership
In 1778 Houdon joined the Masonic Lodge of the Nine Sisters in Paris.
He became a member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture in 1771.
Personality
In a touching passage Augustin Jal, who had known Houdon for a long time, described his last visit to the art exhibition held at the Louvre in 1827: "What is he doing here, this little old man, moving along quickly with short steps, dragging his feet? Let us greet him. He lifts his hat, showing us a head that is completely bald. He speaks but what he says is garbled. The mind that was once so strong is now weak. In this octogenarian child the body has survived but not the spirit. "
Connections
Houdon did not marry until 1786, when he was 45 years old. He had waited so long because he had taken on the responsibility of supporting many of his relatives, all of them poor.
On 1 July 1786, he married Marie-Ange-Cecile Langlois; they had three daughters: Sabine, Anne-Ange, and Claudine.
His marriage was not entirely a happy one, but from it came three daughters in whom he took unending pride. Their portraits exist in many versions: Sabine, age 4, for example, her serious child's face enframed by cascades of long, luxuriant curls; and Claudine, age 15 months, looking upward, wide-eyed and radiant.