HOUDON, Jean Antoine, zhon oo-don, French sculptor: b. Versailles, 20 March 1741; d. Paris, 15 July 1828. Having gained the first for sculpture in the Ecole des Eleves Proteges at Paris in 1761, he went in 1764 to Italy where he studied at the Academy in Rome until the latter part of 1768. There be finished, among other works, the statue of Saint Bruno in the church of Saint Maria degli Angell. Returning to Paris, he executed ad mirable busts of Rousseau, Diderot, D'Alembert, Franklin Turgot, Mirabeau, Gluck, Barlow, Jefferson, efferson, John Paul Jones, Lafayette, Moliere, Napoleon, Voltaire, Washington and many other distinguished men and women; statues of Voltaire and Tourville; the cele brated 'Diana) for the empress of Russia; and other works, which placed him in the first rank of French sculptors. In 1775 he was made a member of the Academy of Painting and Sculp ture where he taught for many years. In 1785 he accompanied Franklin to the United States, to prepare the model for the statue of Wash ington ordered by the State of Virginia, and passed two weeks at Washington's residence at Mount Vernon for that purpose. The statue, bearing the sculptor's legend, "Fait par Houdon, citoyen Francais, now stands in the hall of the capitol of Virginia at Richmond, where there is also one of his marble busts of Lafayette. Among Houdon's later works is the celebrated statue of Cicero ordered by Napoleon I for the Senate chamber. Speci mens of his work are in many public buildings in Paris and in many European museums, es pecially in the Louvre. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; National Academy of Design, New York; American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia; Girard Col lege, Philadelphia and the collections of B. Alt
man, H. C. Frick, J. P. Morgan and other art patrons possess valuable examples of his skill. Some of his works have in recent years brought very high prices when sold at auction, a marble bust of one of his little daughters selling in 1912 at Paris for $90.000. Consult Borgmcyer, C. L., 'Among Sculptures' (in Fine Arts Jour nal, Vol. XXX, p. 199, Chicago 1914); Delerot, E., and Legrelle, A., 'Memoire sur Ia Vie et l'ceuvre de J. H. Houdon' (in Mentoires de Ia Societe des Sciences Morales de Seine-et-Oise, Vol. IV, p. 49, Versailles 1857); Dierks, H., 'Houdons Leber and Werke' (Gotha 1887); Hart, C. H., and Biddle, E., 'Memoirs of the Life and Work of J. A. Houdon' (Philadelphia 1911); Montaiglon, A. de, and Duplessis, G., 'Hondo& (in Revue Universelle des Arts, Vols.
I and II, Paris 1855-56)i Quincy, Qu. de, 'Notice Historique sur la Vie et les OEuvres de M.
(Paris 1829); Riau, L.
de Houdon eu Russie) (in Gazette des Beaux Arts, Periode iv, Vol. XIII, p. 129, Paris 1917) ; Smouse, F. I.,
en Amerique (in Revue de l'Art, Vol. XXXV, p. 279, Paris 1914) ; Taft, L.,