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Lot Essay
Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828), showed a precocious talent for modeling as a child, and studied under Michel-Ange Slodtz (1705-1764). He won the prix de Rome in 1761 and went to Rome as a ‘pensionnaire’ for the Académie française in 1764. He spent 10 years in Italy and was strongly influenced by the arts of Antiquity. He came to international attention with his marble statue of Saint Bruno which he carved for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome in 1766-7, about which Pope Clement XIV is said to have commented ‘he would speak if the rule of his order did not prescribe silence’. Upon returning to Paris, Houdon was made a member of the Académie royale in Paris in 1769. He also furthered his international contacts by visiting the court of the Duke of Saxe Gotha for whom he executed a number of portrait busts, as well as the famous standing figure of Diana, which eventually entered the collection of Catherine the Great of Russia. He had a long-standing relationship with the fledgling country of America, and executed marble busts of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington (examples of both of which are in the Metropolitan Museum, New York) and Jefferson (an example of which is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).
After his return from Rome, Houdon is known to have executed classical busts such as the present one. Two versions of this composition, both signed and dated, are known. The present example differs slightly from the bust previously sold in these Rooms (London, King Street, 2 July 1996, lot 225; private collection Los Angeles) by having a broken nose - probably intended by Houdon to counterfeit an antique marble - and by not having the irises indicated. Although both busts are dated 1775, no corresponding piece is listed in the livret of the Salon of that year. Nevertheless, in a recently discovered letter sent by Houdon to Ernst II, Duke of Saxe Gotha, the sculptor says that he sent to the duke ‘the head of a cupid crowned with myrtle, composed by me’ (tête d’un amour couronné de myrte, composé par moi; Poulet, loc. cit.) which can probably be equated with one of the two ‘heads of young men, one crowned with myrtle the other with a ribbon, in the round and life-size' (têtes de jeunes homes, l’une couronnée de myrte, l’autre ceinte d’un ruban. De ronde-bosse et de grandeur naturelle’) displayed four years earlier at the Salon in 1771. It may be that these earlier busts were made of plaster or terracotta and that the marble versions were carved later. It would appear that one was number 73 in Houdon’s studio sale of 1795; 'A head of Cupid. With locks of naturally curling hair and crowned with branches of myrtle, on a socle of the same material [marble]. Total height: 19 pouces' (‘Une tête d’Amour. Il est coiffé en cheveux naturellement bouclés et couronné de branches de myrte, posé sur piédouche et socle de même matière. H. totale: 19 pouces), while the other must be number 59 in the vente après décès in 1828: 'White marble. Bust of a young man crowned with myrtle' (‘Marble blanc. Buste de jeune home couronné de myrte’). Houdon’s original model probably dates from his Roman period or shortly after, and was presumably called Cupid due to the association of myrtle with Venus. Certainly the almost archaeological classicism of the conception is arrestingly unlike the very different approach of the mature Houdon, but the quality of the carving reveals the sculptor’s early mastery of his art.
After his return from Rome, Houdon is known to have executed classical busts such as the present one. Two versions of this composition, both signed and dated, are known. The present example differs slightly from the bust previously sold in these Rooms (London, King Street, 2 July 1996, lot 225; private collection Los Angeles) by having a broken nose - probably intended by Houdon to counterfeit an antique marble - and by not having the irises indicated. Although both busts are dated 1775, no corresponding piece is listed in the livret of the Salon of that year. Nevertheless, in a recently discovered letter sent by Houdon to Ernst II, Duke of Saxe Gotha, the sculptor says that he sent to the duke ‘the head of a cupid crowned with myrtle, composed by me’ (tête d’un amour couronné de myrte, composé par moi; Poulet, loc. cit.) which can probably be equated with one of the two ‘heads of young men, one crowned with myrtle the other with a ribbon, in the round and life-size' (têtes de jeunes homes, l’une couronnée de myrte, l’autre ceinte d’un ruban. De ronde-bosse et de grandeur naturelle’) displayed four years earlier at the Salon in 1771. It may be that these earlier busts were made of plaster or terracotta and that the marble versions were carved later. It would appear that one was number 73 in Houdon’s studio sale of 1795; 'A head of Cupid. With locks of naturally curling hair and crowned with branches of myrtle, on a socle of the same material [marble]. Total height: 19 pouces' (‘Une tête d’Amour. Il est coiffé en cheveux naturellement bouclés et couronné de branches de myrte, posé sur piédouche et socle de même matière. H. totale: 19 pouces), while the other must be number 59 in the vente après décès in 1828: 'White marble. Bust of a young man crowned with myrtle' (‘Marble blanc. Buste de jeune home couronné de myrte’). Houdon’s original model probably dates from his Roman period or shortly after, and was presumably called Cupid due to the association of myrtle with Venus. Certainly the almost archaeological classicism of the conception is arrestingly unlike the very different approach of the mature Houdon, but the quality of the carving reveals the sculptor’s early mastery of his art.