Subsequent History of Lemoyne’s Bust

The trajectory of Lemoyne’s bust after its 1748 exhibition is uncertain, as is the number and whereabouts of copies the sculptor may have produced in the following years. However, several contemporary sources offer valuable clues.

An inventory dated 6 May 1750, listing the contents of Lemoyne’s studio in the Faubourg-du-Roule, records five terracotta busts, including those of Voltaire, Fontenelle, and Maréchal de Lowendal, collectively valued at 200 livres (i.e., 40 livres each).14 Given that the busts of Fontenelle and Voltaire appeared at the Salon of 1748 (livret nos. 114 and 115, respectively),15 and Lowendal’s at the Salon of 1750 (livret no. 52),16 it is likely these works returned to the artist’s studio from the Louvre following the exhibitions. This would suggest that the bust listed in the inventory is the original. However, the possibility that Lemoyne produced another copy in terracotta cannot be entirely ruled out.17

Another valuable contemporary document is a 21 June 1762 letter that Mme Denis wrote to Lekain from Les Délices. In the letter, she shared it was “such a joy to live with Monsieur de Voltaire and to have his likeness by Monsieur Lemoyne” (“Il est bien doux de vivre avec Monsieur de Voltaire et d'avoir sa copie par Monsieur le Moine”).18 This indicates that Lemoyne’s bust (or a copy) was part of Voltaire’s collection by the early 1760s.

On 16 February 1778, shortly after Voltaire’s triumphant return to Paris, Jean-Jacques Caffieri (1725–1792), a student of Lemoyne, made the following offer to the Comédie-Française:

At the time, Caffieri had an ongoing relationship with the Comédie-Française, having recently created several busts for their foyer, including those of Alexis Piron (1775) and Pierre Corneille (1777).20 Therefore, while the proposal was somewhat unusual, it was not entirely unexpected. Two important details are worth noting here. First, Caffieri refers to a plasterbust made by Lemoyne, indicating that this was not the original terracotta exhibited at the Salon of 1748. Second, he acknowledges the Company’s rule prohibiting the display of portraits of living authors in their foyer. This rule dictated the response Caffieri received from the Comédie on 16 March 1778:

We do not know if the Company ultimately made an exception for Voltaire and installed Lemoyne’s plaster in their foyer. While this detail may seem minor, it could illuminate one of the key events in Voltaire’s biography – his coronation at the Comédie-Française on 30 March 1778 . As part of this multi-stage celebration, which coincided with Voltaire’s attendance of his late tragedy Irène at the Comédie-Française’s temporary venue in the Tuileries Palace, Voltaire’s bust was placed at centre stage, and, after the lead actress, Mme Vestris, recited laudatory verses, the members of the Company crowned the bust with garlands and wreaths in a symbolic gesture of honour.22

The event is well-known, well-represented, and well-documented, but the question of which bust of Voltaire was used during the ceremony remains unresolved. Some argue that it was Lemoyne’s bust, offered to the Comédie-Française by Caffieri just two months prior,23 while others maintain it was the bust executed by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828) around the same time (VI34).24

The Mémoires secrets describe Houdon’s bust as “just made” on 19 April 1778, which could be broadly interpreted and does not necessarily eliminate the possibility that Houdon completed it before 30 March.25 However, in describing the 30 March 1778 coronation, the Mémoires secrets mention that the bust crowned that evening had “recently been placed in the foyer of the Comédie-Française” (“placé depuis peu dans le foyer de la Comédie-Française”),26 a detail which, as Jules Guiffrey points out,27 undermines the identification of the bust as Houdon’s, as it was only installed in the foyer a year later, on 18 February 1779.28

One of the main arguments in favour of Houdon is that the best-known representation of the coronation – Gaucher’s 1782 engraving after Moreau Le Jeune (VI160) – clearly depicts Houdon’s bust rather than Lemoyne’s. A counterargument, however, is that Moreau’s original drawing,29 as well as early versions of the engraving,30 show a different bust – with a longer wig and the head turned to the right – which bears a much closer resemblance to Lemoyne’s work.

While gaps in the evidence remain, the available documents make a stronger case for Lemoyne’s bust having been used during the 1778 coronation. Reconstructing the sequence of events, it seems likely that, following Caffieri’s donation on 16 February 1778 and Des Essarts’s reply on 16 March, the Comédie-Française held a meeting and agreed to install Lemoyne’s bust in their foyer. Then, on 30 March, with the bust newly acquired and Voltaire’s attendance confirmed, the Company decided to incorporate it in their tribute. After the coronation, the bust may have been placed in storage or returned to the foyer, before eventually being replaced by Houdon’s portrait on 18 February 1779 – a decision that prompted Caffieri’s indignant response.31

The story of Lemoyne’s bust and Caffieri does not end in 1778. More than a decade later, at the Salon of 1791, Caffieri exhibited two busts by Lemoyne alongside his own works:

The note that Caffieri had “acquired these two busts from the inventory of M. Lemoyne” (“recuilli ces deux bustes à l’inventaire de M. Lemoine”) should mean that he came into possession of them following Lemoyne’s death on 25 May 1778. This would imply that the Voltaire bust exhibited at the 1791 Salon was distinct from the one Caffieri had donated to the Comédie-Française in February 1778.

Curiously, both the livret description and Caffieri’s earlier letter to the Comédie-Française emphasise that Lemoyne’s portrait was made at the height of Voltaire’s creative output (“Ce portrait a été fait dans le tems que M. de Voltaire produisait ses plus beaux ouvrages”; “c’étoit l’instant de ses plus belles productions”). The livret also underscores that both Voltaire’s and Rousseau’s portraits were made from life, which Caffieri scholars have interpreted as yet another attack of the sculptor on his rival, Houdon, who exhibited his own bust of Voltaire in the same Salon.33

The livretdoes not specify the material of Lemoyne’s bust, and contemporary accounts of the Salon provide no further clarification.34 The work could, therefore, have been the original terracotta, or an author copy in terracotta or another medium.

Engraved Copies

Although ultimately, Lemoyne’s bust of Voltaire never achieved the popularity of Houdon’s later portrayals [], it served as a model for several works produced during Voltaire’s lifetime.

The earliest known example is a frontispiece to the first volume of the 1751 edition of works of Voltaire (VI21), containing La Henriade.35 The print was a collaborative effort of Jean Georges Wille (1715–1808) (who engraved the bust of Voltaire) and Noël Le Mire (1724–1801) (who completed the rest of the composition) after a drawing by Charles-Dominique-Joseph Eisen (1720–1778). It is unclear where Eisen drew the bust – at the Salon of 1748, in Lemoyne’s studio, or elsewhere, but it is unlikely that he sourced it from Voltaire, as the latter was at the court in Potsdam around the time that the engraving must have been created.

The image presents Lemoyne’s bust facing left – reversed from the original bust, as typical in engravings. The bust is flanked by two androgenous winged genii with flames over their heads, bearing attributes of science: a compass, a celestial sphere, a telescope, etc. Above Voltaire hovers another, putto-like, genius with a lyre in one hand and the trumpet of Fame in the other. Behind them, a stage curtain opens onto a round temple emanating light, possibly the Temple of Glory, set amidst an Edenic landscape.

Eisen’s frontispiece was subsequently reused in the 1757 re-edition of Voltaire’s works36 and later reworked in a pirated 1765 edition of La Henriade issued by François Honoré.37 Nearly three decades later after its creation, it appears to have inspired a satirical representation of Voltaire’s 1778 coronation (VI23). In this anonymous caricature, Lemoyne’s bust (now visibly aged) is again placed at the centre of a staged tableau, but the allegorical genii of the earlier composition have been replaced by commedia dell’arte figures, and the idealised background by a literal theatre stage. At the centre, Harlequin crowns the bust with a laurel wreath – one of several piled at its base. The image is accompanied by a mocking caption: “Il est beau de la recevoir / Quand c’est Arlequin qui la donne.” (“It is fine to receive, when it is Harlequin who bestows it.”)

Another print based on Lemoyne’s bust created in Voltaire’s lifetime was engraved by Augustin de Saint-Aubin (1736–1807).38 Announced in the Catalogue des livres nouveaux étrangerson 30 April 1763,39 the print (VI22)40 depicts Voltaire in left profile. Saint-Aubin masterfully translates the vitality of Lemoyne’s sculpted portrait into the printed medium. The curls of the wig, the folds of the collar and the jacket, the surface of Voltaire’s skin, his vivid expression are rendered with striking vitality, creating not merely a depiction of a bust, but a bust brought to life. Given the compositional similarities – both prints feature profile portraits derived from sculpted busts, stylised as round medallions suspended from circular rings and adorned with a rectangular plaque with two crossing laurel branches in the background – and the fact that both were sold at François Joullain’s (1697–1778) print shop on the Quai de la Mégisserie, it is likely that this portrait was created as a pendant to Saint-Aubin’s 1762 print of Voltaire’s collaborator, Jean-Philippe Rameau.41

Voltaire was aware of Saint-Aubin’s print and referred to it twice in 1765 in letters to his friend Étienne Noël Damilaville (1723–1768):

The fact that, among all engraved portraits of himself available by 1765, Voltaire singled Saint-Aubin’s print suggests a considerable degree of esteem, especially given the large number of printed copies after La Tour’s pastel already in circulation at the time.

Sculpted Copies: Pajou, Collot, Caffieri

The sculpted adaptations of Lemoyne’s bust are all linked to his students – Augustin Pajou (1730–1809), Marie Anne Collot (1748–1821), and Jean-Jacques Caffieri – each of whom reinterpreted the portrait to serve distinct purposes.

Between 1708 and 1721, at the request of Évrard Titon du Tillet (1677–1762), Louis Garnier created Parnasse français, a bronze monument representing the celebrated writers and musicians of Louis XIV’s reign gathered on Mount Parnassus, in the company of Apollo and the Three Graces.44 As early as 1727, Titon expressed his desire to expand the monument by including new literary figures.45 In the following decades, he would regularly approach writers he deemed worthy of the honour, proposing to add a medallion portrait of them on the monument during their lifetime or a full statue posthumously.46 Voltaire, naturally, was among those considered.

As evidenced by letter dated 27 February 1739 from Titon to Frederick, then Crown Prince of Prussia, Titon had approached Voltaire some eighteen months earlier, offering to include his medallion portrait with the inscription “nihil intentatum / tout est sujet à son vaste génie”.47 Voltaire, however, who had previously mocked Titon’s monument in a poème fugitif,48 declined his offer. A second attempt in May 175249 received an even more irritated response from Voltaire, which ridiculed both Titon and the project:

The person who eventually reconciled Titon and Voltaire was, somewhat unexpectedly, Marie Françoise Corneille (1742–1805), a relation of the famous playwright. Her father had become impoverished and could no longer support her. Initially, Titon took responsibility for her, but once his funds ran out, he appealed to Voltaire, who agreed to support Corneille’s education and eventually came to regard her as his “fille adoptive”.51 This personal connection most likely allowed Titon to finally secure Voltaire’s approval.

Around 1762, Titon commissioned Lemoyne’s student, Augustin Pajou, to sculpt three more authors for the Parnasse français: Voltaire, Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1674–1762), and Jean-Baptiste Rousseau (1671–1741).52 (Ironically, Voltaire found himself immortalised alongside one of his fiercest enemies.)53 Pajou’s resulting standing figure of Voltaire (VI20) clearly draws on Lemoyne’s bust – the lively turn of the head, sharply defined cheekbones, thick eyebrows, and ironic half-smile all recall his teacher’s work. However, in keeping with the monument’s commemorative purpose, Pajou significantly transformed Lemoyne’s intimate portrayal. He rejuvenated Voltaire’s features – smoothing away wrinkles and replacing the wig with flowing, natural hair – and placed his (now laurel-crowned) head on a youthful, athletic body clad in Roman military garb, transforming Lemoyne’s personal likeness into a timeless image of an immortal poet.

Another of Lemoyne’s students, Marie Anne Collot, used his bust as the basis for her own likeness of Voltaire, created for Catherine II (VI19). In 1766–1775, during her stay in Saint Petersburg with Étienne-Maurice Falconet (1716–1791), Collot produced a series of portraits of prominent figures, past and present, at the request of the Russian empress.54 These included, among others, Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully (Hermitage, Н.ск-5), Henry IV (Н.ск-4), and Denis Diderot (Н.ск-2). As we learn from Diderot’s letter to Falconet dated 6 September 1768, Lemoyne sent to Saint-Petersburg masks of Sully and Henry IV inspired by painted portraits by Frans Pourbus the Younger (1569–1622), which he used in his own busts, for Collot to work from.55 Cécilie Champy-Vinas has suggested that along with these, Lemoyne also sent a mask based on his bust of Voltaire. 56 However, as Guilhem Scherf has rightly noted,57 Collot likely also relied on Saint-Aubin’s engraving, given the notable similarities between the costume in her bust and Voltaire’s dress in Saint Aubin’s print (which departs from Lemoyne’s original).

Finally, Jean-Jacques Caffieri not only made considerable efforts to promote Lemoyne’s bust but also produced his own reductions after it. I have so far been able to trace five such works (VI18) (all executed in terracotta and measuring around 25 cm in height including the base, with one dated 1783 and two 1785),58 but it would not be surprising if more examples emerge in the future. 59 Although he was no doubt both stylistically and technically indebted to Lemyone, it was unusual for Caffieri to reproduce his master’s works,60 especially at this scale, suggesting a deliberate attempt to capitalise on Voltaire’s immense posthumous popularity. The years 1783–85 coincided with the active promotion and publication of the Kehl edition of Voltaire’s complete works, a moment that likely generated an increased demand for his likenesses.61 As Cécile Navarra-Le Bihan has suggested, Caffieri may have also been motivated by a desire to rival his lifelong competitor, Jean-Antoine Houdon, whose bust of Voltaire was enjoying widespread acclaim at the time.62 While the specific instance of Lemoyne’s bust that Caffieri used as a prototype remains unidentified, the 1783-85 dating suggests that it was likely the one he acquired following his teacher’s death in 1778.

The cases of Pajou, Collot, and Caffieri exemplify the close relationships Lemoyne maintained with his students and the collaborative nature of his sculptural practice. More broadly, they illuminate the ways in which iconography circulated in the eighteenth century, still largely dependent on personal and professional networks.