HOUDON (Jean-Antoine). Letter signed to "Monsieur le Préside - Lot 34

Lot n° 34
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HOUDON (Jean-Antoine). Letter signed to "Monsieur le Préside - Lot 34
HOUDON (Jean-Antoine). Letter signed to "Monsieur le Président" [of the Constituent, Guy-Jean-Baptiste Target]. S.l., [1790, probably February]. 1 p. 1/2 in-4. "The honor that the commune deigned to grant me by charging me with making the bust of Mr. Necker was too precious for me not to make it my duty to hasten its execution, this duty became for me even more instantaneous when I learned that the National Assembly was going to deal with the organization of the city of Paris, and that it would not be long before a new nomination of deputies was made. I doubled my work because I believed that it was of my reconaissance to finish this bust promptly so that the same deputies of the Commune of Paris who had been those of the Nation by voting this brilliant distinction to its minister, had the satisfaction to make the dedication of it before leaving places where they so much deserved of all the good citizens. I have the honor, consequently... to ask you to present to the Commune my respect and my recognition and to inform it that the bust of Mr. Necker is completed; that it is exposed in a cabinet in the Library of the King; that it will be opened the day that it will order it, so that Mrs. deputies can see it; and that I will wait for the day that it will fix to lead it to the City, and to expose to the glances of our fellow-citizens this monument of the virtue of those who ordered it and the public recognition... ". On a commission from the Commune, Jean-Antoine Houdon had sculpted a bust of the banker Jacques Necker who was three times minister (1776-1781, 1788-1789 and 1789-1790). Once completed, the work was deposited at the Hôtel de Ville and presented at the Salon of 1791. This letter is quoted in the Moniteur of January 29, 1790. THE MOST CELEBRATED FRENCH STATUTOR OF HIS TIME, JEAN-ANTOINE HOUDON (1741-1828) left masterpieces representing the great figures of his time: Buffon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Condorcet, Catherine II of Russia, Washington, Franklin, La Fayette, Mirabeau, Necker, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ney...
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