AFTER HOUDON, 19TH CENTURY

Jean-Antoine Houdon sculpted several versions of the marquis de Lafayette. The first bust, which was presented by the Commonwealth of Virginia to the City of Paris in 1786, was destroyed during the French Revolution. A second bust, also commissioned by the Virginia Assembly, is now at the rotunda of the Capital in Richmond. A later version, which shows the marquis wearing the uniform of the Garde Nationale is at Versailles, and was possibly exhibited in the Salon of 1791. Arnason writes that the Versailles marble bust dated 1790 "is cold and dead compared with the earlier Richmond model." He discusses the present lot, "aside from the Versailles marble..., there is another marble in private collection in Flushing, New York. This has a different, but equally questionable signature. Otherwise it is identical to the Versailles version and comparable in quality. The Versailles marble has been the source for a large number of modern bronze replicas, as well as at least one plaster, that at the Musée at Mans."