- 19
Jean-Antoine Houdon 1741-1828
Description
- Jean-Antoine Houdon
- Bust of Robert Fulton
- inscribed houdon R. Fulton
- French plaster
- height: 29 3/4 in. (including base)
- (75.5 cm)
- Executed circa 1803.
Provenance
According to Giacometti:
Auction of the contents of Houdon's studio after his death, Paris, France, December 15-17, 1828, no. 50, p. 18
Baron Dejean (brother of Count Dejean, war minister under Napoleon I., bought from a restorer named Mafre, 1838)
Madame T. (mistress of the Baron Dejean)
Monsieur de Vigny, cousin of the poet Alfred de Vigny, Versailles, France, 1856
Monsieur de Vigny, Dubusc au Havre Collection, 1916
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, May 30, 1987, lot 123, illustrated in color
Dalva Brothers, Inc., New York
Literature
Georges Giacometti, La Vie et L'Oeuvre de Houdon, Paris, France, 1928, vol. I, pp. 56-59, illustrated
Louis Reau, Houdon, Sa vie et Son Oeuvre, Paris, France, vol. I, p. 49, vol. II, p. 467, pl. CXXIII
Anne L. Poulet, Jean-Antoine Houdon: Sculptor of Enlightenment, Washington, D.C., 2003, pp. 274-278
Catalogue Note
The present bust is one of three known extant plaster versions of Houdon's portrait of the inventor, engineer and artist, Robert Fulton (1765-1815.) The noted Houdon scholar, Georges Giacometti describes the present bust as an autograph plaster cast by means of a two-piece mould after a plaster maquette, now lost. The present bust appears to be quite different from each of the other known versions. The marble in the Detroit Institute of Art, the plaster formerly in the collection of Mrs. Sarah Hunter Kelly and now in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the plaster bust in the National Academy of Design in New York, which, according to Giacometti, appears to be a cast after the marble, are all very similar busts. However, compared to the present work, they display not only a very different execution of the truncation, but also a somewhat different rendering of the facial features, including the position of the head, which is slightly more raised in the present version. This may lead to the conclusion that the original maquette was the result of a different sitting which probably occurred somewhat earlier. The present plaster appears to be the only version of that variation.
Anne Poulet writes of the present work: "Dalva Brothers, Inc., New York; white plaster with traces of terracotta color. . .differs from other plasters and the marble: younger, gentler expression; hair more pulled back from forehead; jabot fuller, spilling out over the vest and coat; three buttons rather than one on the coat and no lapel below the collar; and no decorative striations on the lower front. Reportedly the plaster from Houdon's posthumous sale in 1828. . ." (Jean-Antoine Houdon: Sculptor of the Enlightenment, Washington, D.C., 2003, p. 278).