Lot n° 26
Estimation :
15000 - 20000
EUR
Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828)
Count Boissy d'Anglas, Senator, 1812,
Plaster with a patina in imitation of terracotta,
60 x 30 x 28 cm..,
Signed and dated, right side: Houdon f. 1812.
Exhibition : - Salon of 1812, n°1091 : "M. le comte Boissy d'Anglas, senator. Bust in plaster."
Related work: - No. 46 of the Sale after death of the Houdon workshop fund, at the request of the artist's three daughters (15-17 December 1828): "Plaster. Mask of the late Count Boissy d'Anglas, peer of France and Member of the Institute. This mask was moulded during the life of this character".
Bibliography : - L. Réau, Houdon, étude sur sa vie, son œuvre, Paris, 1964, t.1, p.458.
- H.H. Arnason, Jean-Antoine Houdon, London, 1975, p.109.
- Cat. exp. Houdon 1741-1828, sculptor of the Enlightenment, Versailles, 2004, p.19.
Provenance : - Unpublished, considered missing by H.H. Arnason, in 1975.
- Private collection, France, acquired on the art market in 2005.
Last known sculpture of the artist, witness of the esteem between the artist and the model, great "survivor" of the Revolution, both members of the Institute.
The bust we present, the last known work by Houdon, exhibited at the Salon of 1812, illustrates the esteem between these two members of the Institute, great survivors of the Revolution.
Boissy d'Anglas, a Protestant from Ardèche and a lawyer, was elected deputy for the district of Annonay at the Estates General in 1789. Defender of coloured men, Protestants and rebellious priests, he was accused of wanting a Protestant Republic. Close to the Girondins, he voted, like them, for the banishment of Louis XVI, then his reprieve. He failed to be drawn into their downfall, decided by the Montagnards.
At the fall of Robespierre ("Thermidor"), who had become the leader of the moderates, he was elected president of the Republic.
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