Image: public domain, courtesy of Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Voltaire

Jean-Antoine Houdon, 1778

Houdon carved this smiling portrait of the French writer Voltaire in marble in 1778. That year Voltaire, aged 83, returned to Paris after almost 30 years away and was welcomed like a hero.

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Did you know?

Voltaire sat for Houdon only a few times in 1778, a couple of months before he died that May.
Look at the eyes: Houdon carved the pupils deep, so the shadows make them seem alive.
Carved on the back is his real name, Arouet de Voltaire, born in Paris in 1694, died in 1778.
Houdon signed and dated it on the cut edge of the right arm: “Houdon F. 1778”.
The marble bust weighs about 71 kilograms.
A French family took it to England during the war of 1870, and in 1901 the American collector Peter Widener bought it.

About the artist

Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828) was born in Versailles and, after several years of study in Rome, worked mainly in Paris.

He was the great portrait sculptor of the Enlightenment, famous for lifelike busts of Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

In 1785 he crossed the Atlantic and stayed at Mount Vernon to model George Washington from life.

Jean-Antoine Houdon ›

Where it is today: Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington · Museum page