Prominent in France during the Enlightenment period of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Jean-Antoine Houdon was a neo-classical sculptor, especially noted for his marble portrait busts and statues. His subjects included Americans Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Robert Fulton, and among his French subjects were Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Louis XVI and Napoléon Bonaparte.

For King Louis, he did numerous statues for the gardens of Versailles. Houdon was a continuous exhibitor at the French Salon, and works included many of the above mentioned personages as well as Prince Henry of Prussia, Catharine of Russia, Voltaire, the playwright Moliere and Marshal de ...