Memoirs of the life and works of Jean Antoine Houdon : the sculptor of Voltaire and of Washington . arms;2 he has come in from his walk, he is fatigued 1 Louis Gonze states that from the Salon books and Sale Catalogue, Houdon musthave made at least six marble busts of Voltaire: first, the three admirable busts, cos-tumed with wig, of the , Versailles, and the Ministry of the Interior,the last escaping the sack of the Palais Royal; then the bust draped a Iantique,executed for Catharine of Russia, the model of which is in the Museum at Gotha; abust on a variegated pedestal (Sal
Memoirs of the life and works of Jean Antoine Houdon : the sculptor of Voltaire and of Washington . arms;2 he has come in from his walk, he is fatigued 1 Louis Gonze states that from the Salon books and Sale Catalogue, Houdon musthave made at least six marble busts of Voltaire: first, the three admirable busts, cos-tumed with wig, of the , Versailles, and the Ministry of the Interior,the last escaping the sack of the Palais Royal; then the bust draped a Iantique,executed for Catharine of Russia, the model of which is in the Museum at Gotha; abust on a variegated pedestal (Sale of 1795); and finally, at the Sale of 1828, a bustin white marble, bare-headed, on a bracket of dark blue marble, perhaps the one in theAngers Museum, he thinks. According to Gonzes view, the one at Versailles is thefinest, and he thinks it probable that this is the one formerly belonging to the dCEuvres des Musees de France. 2According to Louis Gonze (Chef dCEuvres des Musees de France), in theMuseum of Angers is a cast from nature by Houdon of the thin long hands of Voltaire,. V CD 3LT AIM. ~M Jean Antoine Houdon 37 and ready to retire. This is the familiar scene the sculptor haschosen; but in spite of the bodys lassitude, his virile spirit and thesardonic laughter of his face mark the flow of ridicule runningthrough his final meditations. He is immensely amused over thefools, the priests, the fanatics, whom he intends holding up againto general ridicule. It must be confessed that in this little figure, ofless than a foot in height, there is more genius than in those orderedby the court, the one of Corneille1 excepted. This statuette for a long time could be seen at the Hermitage, inSt. Petersburg. There is a note in P. E. Mangeants monographalready quoted, stating that in 1851 the administration of theHermitage, knowing how little sympathy the Emperor Nicholas Ientertained for Voltaire, and having no appreciation of the artisticmerit of the statuette, dispose
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidmemoirsoflif, bookyear1911
