Lafayette, after Jean-Antoine Houdon

A fine bronze portrait bust of the Marquis de Lafayette, after and contemporary with the portrait by the famed French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828)

Beautifully presented on an ormolu-mounted grey marble plinth in turn on a statuary marble base, the design for the ormolu knurling cleverly taken from the sitter’s epaulettes; the subject identified by an engraved plate with crossed laurel sprigs to confirm his victorious status.

h:10.5 inches x w:3.75 inches x d:3.5 inches

Lafayette is remembered as a “Hero of Two Worlds”, helping to secure both independence for America and for championing liberty in France at the beginning of the French Revolution.

Lafayette sat for Houdon in 1786 and just before returning to America, Jefferson purchased a number of busts from the sculptor, amongst them a terracotta-coloured plaster on which this bronze is based, installed in the Tea Room at Monticello as part of Jefferson’s “gallery of worthies.”. The State of Virginia commissioned two marble busts from Houdon, one to be installed in the Virginia State Capitol, the other for the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, the French model being destroyed in 1792 along with three other portraits by the artist.