Pair Of Gilded Bronze Busts Of Voltaire And Rousseau, Louis XVI Period, 16th–18th Centuries, Age Of Enlightenment

A pair of matching busts of the writers and philosophers Rousseau and Voltaire, cast in bronze gilded with gold and perched atop a small Carrara marble column:

-Voltaire, based on the portrait by painter Nicolas de Fassin, who traveled to the Château de Ferney in 1769 to paint the author in a nightcap and dressing gown.

-Rousseau, based on the portrait by painter Allan Ramsay, painted during his exile in London in 1766. He is dressed in a coat and an Armenian-style headdress. 

Beautiful quality of engraving and rendering of Rousseau’s fur and Voltaire’s wig

Date: late 18th century

Condition: minor chipping on the marble; gilding in good condition with slight wear

Comparable work in public collections:
A bust of Voltaire in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims, seized during the Revolution in 1795, inv. 795.1.452

On the art market:
-Lot 1401 from October 17, 2022, at Sotheby’s, Hotel Lambert, a Princely Collection
-Lot 188 from March 18, 2015, at Sotheby’s, The Dillees: A Dynasty of Experts and Collectors