Houdon, Jean-Antoine (1740-1828)

Sculptor.

Won the premier prix de Rome at the Ecole des beaux-arts (1759). Spent six years in Italy. Returned to France. His Morphée won him entrance into the Academy (1771).

Exhibited his bust of Franklin (1778) at the Salon of 1779, along with his busts of Rousseau, Molière, and Voltaire. Also sculpted busts of Lafayette, Diderot, Buffon, d’Alembert, and Louis XVI, among others.

Accompanied Franklin to the United States after he had been commissioned to sculpt a bust of Washington (1785).

Born in Versailles.