Biography

French sculptor. Son and pupil of the decorative sculptor François-Antoine Vassé (1681-1736), he entered Edme Bouchardon's workshop, becoming his favourite pupil. In 1739 he won the Prix de Rome with a bas-relief representing Jezebel Devoured by Dogs (untraced), and the following year he went to the Académie de France in Rome, returning to Paris in 1745. He was approved (agréé) by the Académie Royale in 1748 and received (reçu) as a full member in 1751 on presentation of a statuette of a Sleeping Shepherd (marble; Paris, Louvre). In 1761 he was made professor at the Académie Royale, and he was appointed Dessinateur de l'Académie des Inscriptions in 1762.

From 1748 he exhibited at the Salon, notably a plaster model of a tomb (1748; untraced) comprising a woman weeping over an urn veiled with her draperies, the type of funerary monument in which he was to specialize in both free-standing and relief formats. In 1750 he exhibited a bust of Benedict XIV, a model of a Weeping Virgin and terracotta sketch models of Daedalus and Nessus as well as a proposal for a public square with an equestrian statue of Louis XV (all untraced).