Lemoyne, Jean-Baptiste

▪ French sculptor

born Feb. 15, 1704, Paris, Fr.

died May 25, 1778, Paris

      French sculptor chiefly important for his portrait busts.

      The pupil of his father, Jean-Louis Lemoyne, and of Robert Le Lorrain, he was appointed sculptor to Louis XV. Lemoyne executed many likenesses of the king, either as large sculptures—the statues in the royal squares at Bordeaux (1743) and at Rennes (1754)—or as busts. Most of these were destroyed in the French Revolution. He also produced many portraits of the leaders of French society of his day, including busts of Voltaire (1748), Montesquieu (1767), and Madame de Pompadour (1761). His works are essentially Baroque in style, with an elegance of decorative handling that is Rococo.

      Many of the most important 18th-century French sculptors studied under Lemoyne, including Jean-Antoine Houdon, Étienne-Maurice Falconet, Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, and Jean-Jacques Caffiéri.

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