Lot n° 105
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Workshop of Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828) - Lot 105
Workshop of Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828)
Madame Houdon, born Marie-Ange-Cécile Langlois (1765-1823)
Plaster bust
H. 73 cm
Scratches and small chips on the surface, accident to the nose, restoration of the attachment to the pedestal
Related works :
Jean-Antoine Houdon, Madame Houdon (1765-1823), original plaster, H. 48 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. R.F.1391;
Jean-Antoine Houdon, Portrait de Madame Houdon, circa 1786, terracotta, Pittsburgh, Frick Art & Historical Center, inv. 1973.3;
Atelier de Jean-Antoine Houdon, Portrait de Madame Houdon, plaster bust, H: 58 cm, Courty Collection, sale Olivier Choppin de Janvry/Massol, Paris, December 9, 2002, no. 67.
Related literature:
Georges Giacometti, La vie et l'oeuvre de Houdon, vols. 1 and 2, Paris, A. Camoin, 1929, vol. 1: p. 42 and p.169, vol. 2: pp.74-75.
Louis Réau, Houdon : sa vie et son oeuvre, Paris, F. de Nobele, 1964, model listed under n°135, plates LXIV and LXV ;
Hjorvardur Harvard Arnason, Jean-Antoine Houdon : le plus grand sculpteur français du XVIIIème siècle, Lausanne, Edita Denöel, 1976, model listed under n° 172 and plate 111 ;
Anne Poulet, Jean-Antoine Houdon: sculptor of the Enlightenment, Washington DC, National Gallery of Art, University of Chicago Press, 2003, model listed under n°17, pp.133-136;
The model represented is Marie-Ange-Cécile Langlois shortly before her marriage to the sculptor in July 1786. But it is under the title Portrait de jeune fille that Houdon presents the plaster bust at the Salon of 1787 under the number 258. The portrait, anonymous for the public, met with great success from the critics.
The plaster cast from the Salon of 1787, preserved by the artist's family, was bought by the Louvre Museum in 1905. Paul Vitry identified the young woman as Houdon's future wife thanks to the famous painting of Houdon's studio by Boilly, in which the bust of the young woman can be seen. Paul Vitry includes the work in the corpus of the sculptor's intimate portraits.
Our plaster shows many variations with the rare other examples listed, particularly in the arrangement of the hairstyle. This complex hairstyle, both natural and sophisticated, seems to be less complete here, still in the research stage. Some strands are missing and others are just put in place in large masses without the concern for refinement that we know in Houdon's finished works. The print has a nice nervousness, although uneven in places and despite some glares. This portrait, full of truth and life, presents certain technical details that suggest that it is, if not the original plaster, at least an intermediate state, a workshop plaster. For example, the accidental traces of tools in the hair, the result of a hasty removal from a mould with a lost cavity; or the various additions of fresh plaster strands, barely sketched out, which seem to be the result of a reflection on the general positioning of the hairstyle. Contrary to the copy in the Louvre, which has been stripped, our plaster shows its original skin, traces of tools and hatching to accentuate shadows or hollows. The eyes show incisions in the corner of the eyelids, the left earlobe is reshaped and added, and some of the beads in the hair are only barely noted, cubic and schematic. The plaster itself is dense, heavy, like the type of plaster used in 18th century sculpture. The work as a whole leaves an impression of intimacy in the studio, of research in progress, which echoes the tenderness and naturalism of this family portrait.
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