Jean-Louis Couasnon

Couasnon specialized in portraiture, particularly of children, and rendered their expressions with great sweetness and resemblance. His work recalls that of Jean-Antoine Houdon.^[2] Couasnon made a bust of Alexandrine Émilie Brogniart (b. 1780), daughter of the architect and designer Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, when she was aged four.^[3] Houdon made portraits of Émilie's older siblings. Couasnon rendered the eyes in same way, with bowl-shaped irises and deeply carved pupils, but in contrast to Houdon's masterful work the hair is stiff and the dress is complicated.^[4] His portrait of the poet Jean-Baptiste de Santeul is said to be his masterpiece.^[1]

• 1782 Portrait de Madame Perriere de Mausny
• 1784 Bust of the four-year-old Alexandrine-Émilie Brongniart (1780-1847) (Louvre).
• 1775 Portrait of Charlotte de Grouchy (musée Carnavalet)
• 1784 Portrait of François-Benoît-Fortuné de Pluvié, dit Guibert (1779-1799), aged five (Louvre)
• 1790 (circa) "Portrait de Gérard de Visme"

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