Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne

Lemoyne, Jean-Baptiste: <em>Geneviève-Françoise Randon de Malboissière</em>Geneviève-Françoise Randon de Malboissière, marble sculpture by Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, 1768; in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne (born February 15, 1704, Paris, France—died May 25, 1778, Paris) was a French sculptor chiefly important for his portrait busts.

Lemoyne, Jean-Baptiste: Bust of Fontenelle
Lemoyne, Jean-Baptiste: Bust of FontenelleBust of Fontenelle, marble sculpture by Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, undated; in the collection of the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.

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.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.
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Article Title: Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 21 May 2024
URL: https://www.britannica.comhttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Baptiste-Lemoyne
Access Date: November 21, 2024