Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne (sculptor)

Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne was born in Paris in 1704. His father Jean-Louis Lemoyne, was also a sculptor, and was first teacher. He later became a student of another prominent sculptor, Robert Le Lorrain.^[2] He is sometimes referred to as Jean-Baptiste II Lemoyne or "the younger" to distinguish him from his uncle of the same name, another sculptor, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne the Elder.^[3]

He received the prix de Rome awarded by the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, but remained in Paris to aid his blind father. He became a member of the Academy in 1838, and, later became its director. Like the other royal sculptors, made statuary for the Gardens of Versailles. He was a particular favorite of Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of the King and an important patron of the arts. He made a graceful rococo sculpture of Vertumnus and Pomone, two characters from the Metamorphoses of Ovid, which was a favorite theme of Madame Pompadour. The sculpture is now in the Louvre. He also made a state of Madame Pompadour in the costume of a nymph. He made several busts of Louis XV, and an equestrian statue of the King for the courtyard of the new Ecole Militaire, but this was destroyed during the French Revolution.^[4]

He was especially known for the quality of his portrait busts, which captured the passing nuances of expression and gave a sense of movement. His important portrait busts included those of the naturalist René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1751); the painter Noël-Nicolas Coypel (1760);^[5] the scientist Fontenelle (at Versailles); Madame de Pompadour; and Marie-Antoinette in 1771. He is considered the most skilled of the French rococo sculptors.^[6]

Lemoyne's students included Étienne Maurice Falconet Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, and Augustin Pajou.^[7]

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  The Comtesse de Feuquieres by Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne. Terracotta, circa 1738 CE. From Paris, France. The Victoria and Albert Museum, London
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  A plaster bust of his friend Noel-Nicolas Coypel, 1730 (Raclin Murphy Museum of Art)
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  Louis XV (1749), Palace of Versailles
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  Model for a Monument to Louis XV in Rennes (1746–48), Art Institute of Chicago
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  Vertumnus and Pomona, 1760 (the Louvre)
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  Essaying and scientist Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1749) Carnegie Museum of Art
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  Geneviève-Françoise Randon de Malboissière (1768), Metropolitan Museum of Art
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  Marie-Antoinette (1771) (Musée d'Histoire de l'art, Vienne)
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  The Duchesse de La Rochefoucauld (1774), Metropolitan Museum of Art

• Rococo
• French sculpture