The Painter's Chair

by Hugh Howard

  In early manhood, he produced sculptures on grand historical and mythological themes, but at age thirty he had begun the work that brought him wide renown. The first of his many busts of great men was a portrait of encyclopedist Denis Diderot, exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1771. A full member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture by 1777, Houdon counted among his patrons members of the French and German nobility, as well as Catherine the Great of Russia.

  Houdon arrived as a head-hunter, a bustier, having made the Atlantic journey to take a bust of a new and different kind of aristocrat. For nearly a year he anticipated arriving at the plantation home of the mysterious man—a farmer, really, and a retired soldier—and that rare personage who engaged the curiosity of Eu rope beyond other men. Described by a contemporary as being “above all modern artists,” Houdon hoped to capture in his sculpture the essential genius of the enigmatic man who had helped reshape the world.1

  GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON had led his country to victory at the last major military conflict of the war, the Battle of Yorktown. Virginia’s favorite son had marched his combined American and French troops to Virginia from his base in New York. Together with troops already in Virginia and the French fleet that arrived to control the Chesapeake, they surrounded British commander Lord Cornwallis and his men. After a three-week siege, the British had surrendered on October 19, 1781. At the time almost no one recognized the significance of the events at Yorktown, but in the months that followed the British evacuated Charleston, South Carolina, and on September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed, formally acknowledging the in dependence of the United States of America.

  One of the signatories to that document, Benjamin Franklin, joined Jean-Antoine Houdon on the voyage to America in 1785. The previous year Virginia’s General Assembly had resolved “to take measures for procuring a statue of General Washington, to be of the finest marble and the best workmanship.”2Since no American sculptor possessed the skills to fulfill such a commission, Governor Benjamin Harrison deputized his predecessor, Thomas Jefferson, to select the right man for the assignment.

  The task of finding a sculptor and acting as Virginia’s commissioning agent suited Jefferson. He consulted Franklin, the man he was succeeding as the American Minister to the Court of Louis XVI, and soon wrote to tell Harrison of their choice. “There could be no question raised as to the Sculptor who should be employed, the reputation of Mons. Houdon of this city, being unrivalled in Europe.”3Jefferson wrote to Washington, too, at Mount Vernon, to assure the General that Houdon was “the finest statuary of the world.”4

  While awaiting Jefferson’s reply—an exchange of letters between Europe and America typically required several months to cross and re-cross the Atlantic—Governor Harrison had asked Charles Willson Peale “to draw a full-length picture of [Washington] immediately, and, as soon as it is sufficiently dry, to have it packed up in the most secure manner and shipped in the first ship bound for France to the address of the hon[ora]ble Thomas Jefferson.” Peale’s previous experience in painting the General from life enabled him to dispatch the requested canvas in short order, along with his bill for thirty guineas. Of his own initiative, the ever-expansive Peale added a scene in the foreground from the decisive Battle of Yorktown. It featured, explained Peale, “French and American officers with their colors displayed, and between them the British with their colors cased.” He thought the battle view might be useful “if any pieces of history are to be made in bas-relief on the pedestal of the Statue.”5

  In France, neither the likeness of the man nor the battle scene proved to be what the sculptor needed. Houdon condescended to tell Jefferson that a sculpture “cannot be perfectly done from a picture.” Previously ignorant of the art of sculpture, Jefferson came to understand Houdon’s refusal to work from Peale’s portrait. As he explained to his Virginia colleagues, “On conversing with [Houdon], Dr. Franklin and myself became satisfied that no statue could be executed so as to obtain the approbation of those to whom the figure of the original is known . . . Statues are made every day from portraits; but if the person be living they are always condemned by those who know him for want of resemblance.”6

  Though he dismissed the painting, Houdon expressed his eagerness to make the sculpture. The men negotiated a fee of 25,000 livres (equivalent to a thousand English guineas or five thousand dollars), plus expenses and a life insurance policy of 10,000 livres. Houdon would travel to Mount Vernon, where, as Jefferson put it, he would “take the true figure by actual inspection and mensuration.” After visiting Mount Vernon, Houdon was to return to his Paris studio, where, it was agreed, three years would be required to execute a full-size, standing figure in marble for the Virginia State Capitol.7

  On that brisk, clear October morning, Franklin made one final entry in his travel diary before emerging from below decks to see his “dear Philadelphia” for the first time in almost a decade. As the London Packet approached the busy city, Franklin knew this would be his last homecoming. At seventy-nine, he had passed much of the voyage in his cabin. His party, which included two grandsons, Benny and Temple, and a grandnephew, Jonathan Williams Jr., had occupied all of the ship’s “elegant and convenient accommodations.”8During the trip, the old man reveled in his newfound leisure—the weight of his diplomatic duties had been lifted with the responsibilities left in Mr. Jefferson’s capable hands—and he happily returned to the practice of science. One of America’s foremost natural philosophers, he picked up where he left off nine years earlier on his last transatlantic voyage, his passage to France in 1776. With his grandnephew taking daily readings of the wind, air and water temperature, latitude, and longitude, Franklin incorporated the findings into a learned paper titled Maritime Observations. He also completed two other treatises during the voyage, On the Causes and Cure of Smoky Chimneys and Description of a New Stove for Burning of Pitcoal.

  Though his aging body grew infirm, Franklin remained curious, his mind sharp.

  Despite seeing little of him during the voyage, Houdon knew Franklin’s physiognomy well. The American had stood out from what he called “the powdered heads of Paris.”9With his plain Quaker clothes, thinning gray hair, omnipresent spectacles, and fur cap, Franklin had been a popular figure in the city’s salons, an admired eccentric often seen in drawings, paintings, and pastels. His likeness had been widely published in engravings and mezzotints, his miniature portraits reproduced in rings, snuffboxes, and clocks. Monsieur Houdon himself had joined the parade of artists who recorded Franklin, producing a bust that had gone on view in his studio in 1778. Though both were members of the same Masonic lodge, the men had not formally met at the time (Houdon worked from published prints and sightings of the famous Dr. Franklin).10Even so, Houdon’s terra-cotta bust of the memorable American had been much admired at the Paris Salon of 1779.

  Word of Franklin’s return preceded him, and as the ship entered the harbor, a gathering crowd on the Market Street wharf came into view. Packet drew closer, cannons were fired and bells rung. The people’s huzzahs soon became audible.

  In the tumult surrounding the grand welcome extended to Dr. Franklin, Monsieur Houdon, a fellow of unremarkable appearance dressed in other people’s clothing, became the forgotten man. While Franklin’s friends and family welcomed him home with tears and cheers, the most celebrated sculptor in the world, the first artist of international note to cross the Atlantic, stepped onto American soil almost entirely unnoticed.

  II.

  October 1785 . . . The Mansion House . . . Mount Vernon

  A SEPTEMBER LETTER from Franklin had advised Washington that Houdon planned to travel south after reequipping himself. Thus prompted, the General wrote by return mail to the sculptor: “I wish the object of your mission had been more worthy of the masterly genius of the first statuary in Eu rope: for thus you are represented to me. It will give me pleasure, Sir, to welcome you to the seat of my retirement, and what ever I have and can procure that is necessary for purposes or convenient
to your wishes, you must freely command.”11

  Washington’s custom was to retire at nine o’clock, but it was much later that Sunday night when the barking of dogs and a household commotion on the first floor woke him. “After we were in bed (about eleven o’clock in the evening),” Washington noted in his diary, “Mr. Houdon . . . and three young men assistants, introduced by a Mr. Perin, a French gentleman of Alexandria, arrived here by water from the latter place.”12

  Houdon spoke little English, so Joseph Marie Perrin, a merchant and storekeeper who ran a store opposite the Alexandria courthouse, was enlisted as translator. Soon Houdon and Perrin, along with the three élèves (Houdon’s student assistants, two young Frenchmen and an Italian lad named Micheli), were shown to their quarters. Then the Washing-tons and their other visitors, who included a variety of family members, several friends, and two clergymen, settled down once again for the night.

  In the morning Houdon produced a letter of reference from the Marquis de Lafayette. A decade earlier, the nineteen-year-old French aristocrat had outfitted a ship, La Victoire, at his own expense and sailed to America in support of the American cause. A captain in the French dragoons, the marquis brought valuable military training, but the friendship that developed between him and Washington went well beyond their military bond. Although a devoted stepfather, Washington had no children of his own. Lafayette had lost his father on the battlefield before the boy turned two. A fond friendship developed, as Washington and Lafayette came to regard each other as father and son.

  The marquis had become well acquainted with Houdon a few months before when the sculptor had been commissioned to make a bust of him, and the unfinished marble awaited the artist’s return to his Paris workshop. Lafayette wrote of Houdon, “Nothing but the love of glory and his respect for you could induce him to cross the seas.” Yet Washington’s feelings about the artist’s presence in his house remained mixed. In truth, his attitude toward each of the string of artists who came to him ranged from philosophical acceptance to irritation and impatience. The imposing Virginian had long ago grown accustomed to public attention—whenever he walked into a room, raised his sword in battle, or simply stepped from a carriage, all eyes seemed drawn to him. He felt obliged to accede to artists’ requests for sittings, but he retained a strong dislike for having his picture taken.

  For three days after Houdon’s arrival at Mount Vernon, mild autumn temperatures and the faultless Virginia skies enabled the self-effacing artist to follow in his subject’s wake, while the older man (Washington was a hearty fifty-three) went about the business of managing his plantation. Aside from the temporary presence of the unfamiliar French artist with whom he could communicate only with difficulty, Washington’s circumstances at Mount Vernon brought him genuine joy. He had come home after eight-and-a-half-years of war, during which he had spent less than two weeks on the land he loved. When at last he was able to return to civilian life, after the English evacuation of New York, the General had resigned his commission as commander in chief in Annapolis, climbed onto his horse, and galloped home.

  He reached Mount Vernon on Christmas Eve 1783, firm in his resolve to stay there. “At length my Dear Marquis I am become a private citizen,” he had written to Lafayette, “under the shadow of my own Vine and my own Figtree free from the bustle of a camp & the busy scenes of public life . . . I shall be able to view the solitary walks, & tread the paths of private life with heartfelt satisfaction . . . until I sleep with my Fathers.”13

  A demanding taskmaster, the squire of Mount Vernon monitored work on his estate. The day before Houdon’s arrival a crew of carpenters had raised scaffolding over the front door of the Mansion House, preparing to reshingle a portion of the roof and install copper guttering. A landscaping project was under way, with slaves working to smooth the earth in front of the house into a lawn that Washington called a “Bolling Green.”

  In these unfamiliar environs, Houdon watched and waited.

  THE OPPORTUNITY HOUDON wished for arrived with Thursday’s dank, gray skies. The weather was “dripping of rain, more or less all day,” and the stocky Frenchman persuaded Washington to settle into the sitter’s chair. On that day and the next, a resigned Washington posed “for Mr. Houdon to form my Bust.”14The artist and his subject were left without a translator, Perrin having returned to Alexandria, but Houdon could at last get to work on the task for which he had crossed an ocean.

  The days Houdon spent waiting had not been entirely wasted. He grew familiar with the General’s long-legged gait, studied his enormous hands, his broad face, and his courtly but quiet manner. He watched Washington with his family and friends, and one morning observed a revealing exchange with a man little known to the General. A messenger had arrived at the breakfast table that day, bringing word that a farmer waited on Washington at Mount Vernon’s western gate. The message was that he had brought two horses Washington wished to buy.

  When Washington rose from the table, so did Houdon; he remained within earshot of Washington’s conversation, too. The visitor quite evidently hoped to consummate a deal for the horses and, after a time, the General asked the man to name his price. When he did, Washington reacted by throwing his head back and uttering a strong but indecipherable sound of outrage. At that moment, the artist saw the pose he wished to record. He would portray Washington with his chin raised, head tilted slightly, with a certain firmness to the jaw. Houdon had watched Washington go about his daily life, his features unreadable—but in a conversational moment the mask had cracked, and Houdon glimpsed the expression he would use to give his Washington a tension, a mobility, even a vitality.

  In his makeshift studio Houdon’s medium was clay. The Frenchman gradually built up the soft and pliable material, starting with large chunks. As a vaguely ovoid form began to resemble a human head, he added thinner layers. The moist clay had a soft, plastic quality that lent itself to modeling, and Houdon manipulated the material with his hands and with tools that seemed like extensions of his fingers. As he worked the surface, he added more clay. In areas where he had too much, he trimmed and sliced.

  Washington’s hair was pulled back and tied in a braid at the nape of his neck, revealing a lengthening forehead. Houdon took regular measurements from his sitter, using calipers, a measuring device consisting of a pair of legs fastened at a hinged joint. The Washington bust was to be life-size, so Houdon could measure the breadth of Washington’s brow, the length of his jaw, the distance from nose to cheekbone. Calipers of differing sizes allowed for determining larger or smaller distances as Houdon moved from the man to the soft clay mass, transferring his measurements.

  For two days, Houdon worked to capture not only the structure of Washington’s head, neck, and chest but also his facial features, blending actual appearance with his own sense of the man’s character. The hair he left unfinished, shaping it roughly with his tools and fingers, but he worked the face and neck to a smooth texture. The eyes he shaped had holes for the pupils, drilled deeply into recesses suggesting irises. The likeness was there—the strong jaw, the lined forehead, the large nose—when, on Saturday, the sun reemerged and Houdon lost his model. Washington happily resumed his normal routine and that mild fall day saw to the sowing of grass seed imported from England in the ornamental front lawn. On Sunday, Washington, Houdon, and several men in his household rode to a nearby plantation to attend a funeral. Meanwhile, back at Mount Vernon, the clay head remained atop bare shoulders.

  The sculpture was not a highly polished effort—Houdon planned to fulfill the Virginia commission working in marble upon his return to Paris—but in this first bust, the connection between artist and subject could hardly have been more immediate. Houdon captured in clay his fleeting impression of the great man.

  GEORGE WASHINGTON LEARNED from life. While fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson had collected and read thousands of books, Washington’s literary exposure was more limited. Lacking a college education, he remained self-conscious about his lack of formal
education, but he possessed keen powers of observation and regularly recorded what he saw and thought in detail in his letters and diaries. Typically, on Monday, October 10, Washington found himself fascinated by the process of preparing “Plaister of Paris.”

  To begin, Washington noted, Houdon’s assistants broke chunks of gypsum into lumps that were no larger than “the size of a pullets egg.” In the absence of a kiln, the visiting artist adapted a kitchen bake oven to dehydrate the plaster. A wood fire was built in the oven to preheat the dome-shaped masonry mass; after the fuel burned down, the coals and ash were raked out. Having built a larger fire than was usual (the plaster needed to reach higher temperatures than did house hold baked goods), Houdon’s assistants put the plaster into the oven, closed the door, and left it overnight. “[S]ufficiently calcined by this operation,” Washington noted in his detailed diary entry, “[the Plaister] was pulverized (in an Iron Mortar) & sifted for use through a fine lawn sieve, & kept from wet.”15