Jean Antoine Houdon

Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828) was a French Neoclassical sculptor whose portrait busts captured the likenesses of the most important figures of the Enlightenment. Born in Versailles, he studied at the French Academy in Rome and won the Prix de Rome at age 20.

Houdon sculpted virtually every major figure of the late 18th century: Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and most famously, George Washington. He traveled to Mount Vernon in 1785 to take a life mask of Washington, and his resulting statue at the Virginia State Capitol remains the most authoritative likeness of the first president. Our collection includes 5 works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago.