Bust of the Poet Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695)

Currently not on view

Bust of the Poet Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695)

c. 1782-1783

Jean-Antoine Houdon (French (active Paris), 1741–1828)

In 1781, Monsieur Haudry, an art collector in Orléans, France, commissioned a terracotta bust of the poet Jean de La Fontaine as a companion piece to an earlier bust by Houdon showing the playwright Molière. As a point of departure for depicting La Fontaine, Houdon used a seventeenth-century image by Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743). In revising the terracotta composition for this marble, the artist enlarged the lower part of the portrait, rendering it grander and making it, in its form, more like a seventeenth-century bust. This sculpture was probably the one Houdon exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1783.

Currently not on view

Object Details

Title:

Bust of the Poet Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695)

Date:

c. 1782-1783

Artist:

Jean-Antoine Houdon (French (active Paris), 1741–1828)

Medium:

Marble

Dimensions:

35 1/2 x 25 1/4 x 13 3/4 inches (90.2 x 64.1 x 34.9 cm)

Classification:

Sculpture

Credit Line:

Purchased with the Fiske Kimball Fund and the Marie Kimball Fund, 1966

Accession Number:

1966-174-1

Geography:

Made in France, Europe

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Currently not on view