First printed edition of Plato’s complete works in Greek
Essai sur l’éducation des aveugles (Essay on the education of blind children)
Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828)
Bust of Voltaire (1694–1778)
Bronze, 1778
George Arents Collection
Bust of Voltaire (1694–1778)
Renowned for the lifelike quality of his work, the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon rendered portrait busts of some of the most noted figures of the 18th and 19th centuries, including Denis Diderot, Benjamin Franklin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Houdon undertook this bust of Voltaire just a few months before the philosopher’s death in May 1778. The resulting sculpture portrays its subject without wig or adornments, thus conveying not only the features of one of the leaders of Enlightenment thought, but also the austere rationality to which that philosophy aspired. It was considered such a successful likeness that Parisians regularly visited the artist’s studio to marvel at his creation, and numerous casts were made of the original, including the present bronze likeness.
Currently on View at Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
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