A French alabaster bust of Voltaire, Jean Claude François Joseph Rosset 1767

signed and dated under his left shoulder ROSSET sculpsit 1767 A.S. CLAUDE and upon an associated fluted columnar mable base.

U. Fischer, Une famille de sculpteurs et peintres comtois:  Les Rosset, Paris, 1919

Jean Claude François Joseph Rosset, known as Rosset Père, was the most renowned member of a family of sculptors from St. Claude in the Jura.  Together with his son Claude-Antoine Rosset (1745-1818), known as Rosset Fils, he worked in alabaster, marble and ivory, specializing in bust portraits.  Rosset exhibited in the Salon de Correspondence in 1779.  In 1765 he was introduced to Voltaire, then living nearby at Ferney.  Voltaire agreed to sit for him, and from this original sitting several busts and statuettes were made, increasing Rosset's renown within artistic circles.  Indeed, the present portrait of Voltaire seems to confirm the story that Voltaire was so taken by the sculptor's friendly personality that, while they were playing chess together, he was so relaxed 'he doffed his wig and presented his naked head' to Rosset.