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Achievement: Houdon, Jean-Antoine (Versailles, March 20, 1741 - Paris (75), July 15, 1828) (sculptor)

Portrait of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

  • 1692.face.jpg

Production: 1780
Estate: Sculpture
Technique(s) : Terracotta
Dimensions : H. 63 cm
Inventory no.: S.1692
Photo credit(s) : Lauginie, François

Cartel

Jean-Antoine Houdon's lively busts of the illustrious men of his time are largely responsible for his reputation as one of the leading artists of the 18th century. A portraitist of genius, capturing the psychology of his models with rare acuity, he had to wait until the death of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1778 before he could sculpt the features of the philosopher, who had stubbornly refused to be posed. Rousseau's death in Ermenonville at the home of the Marquis de Girardin offered the sculptor a last chance to freeze the features of the author of the Enlightenment, to whom he rushed to create a death mask, now in the Musée Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Geneva. Although Les Confessions and Les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire, Rousseau's most famous works today, were only published posthumously, in 1782, the author enjoyed one of the biggest book runs of the 18th century with Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse (1761), and his philosophical theories spread successfully during the Enlightenment, with three seminal books of his thought: Discours sur les sciences et les arts (1750), Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes (1755) and Du contrat social (1762). Houdon produced his first bust from the death mask, which he presented to Girardin on the occasion of the first anniversary of Rousseau's death, in 1779. Two other versions, one without a wig and one in the antique style, followed. A terracotta print of the first version, made in 1780, is now in the Musée d'Orléans. It was part of the extraordinary collection of François-Pascal Haudry (1718-1800), president of the Orléans finance office, before passing into the Vandebergue collection and then, in 1848, into that of M. Dupuis, councillor at the Court of Appeal, whose daughters presented it with three other busts in memory of their father.

Provenance

Orleans, collection of François-Pascal Haudry, President of the Orleans Finance Office (1728-1800).
Purchased by Mr. Vandebergue at the sale of the Haudry collection (1800, no. 50), 1800
Orléans, Vandebergue Collection
Purchased by M. Dupuis, conseiller à la cour d'appel, at the sale of the Vandebergue collection, 1848.
Orléans, Dupuis Collection.
Donated by Mesdemoiselles Dupuis, daughters of M. Dupuis, to the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans, 1887.

School

France

Location

Museum of Fine Arts

1st floor

Room: Towards a return to Antiquity: the arts under Louis XV and Louis XVI

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