HOUDON, Jean-Antoine
(b. 1741, Versailles, d. 1828, Paris)

Flayed Man or Ecorché au bras tendu

1767
Plaster
National Gallery of Art, Washington

A commission for a statue of St John the Baptist for Santa Maria degli Angeli (plaster; Rome, Galleria Borghese) was the occasion for the production of Houdon's famous statue of a Flayed Man or Ecorché au bras tendu (plaster version, Schloss Friedenstein, Gotha; later and modified bronze version, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris). It bears witness to Houdon's other great source of inspiration - study from nature.




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