Clodion (Claude Michel)

Born in Nancy to a family of well-known sculptors, Clodion went in his youth to Paris to work with an uncle, Lambert-Sigisbert Adam, and subsequently with Pigalle. After winning the Prix de Rome, he spent nine years in that city studying antiquities, Roman baroque sculpture, and the art of his contemporaries, from Piranesi to Sergel. While he was yet a fledgling at the French Academy in Rome, his prodigious talents, and his special aptitude for small terracottas, attracted an illustrious clientele, including Catherine the Great. On his return to Paris in 1771, Clodion’s successes multiplied. He received major commissions for public and church monuments and produced countless models for vases, reliefs, clocks, and other decorative projects. A supporter of the monarchy, he fled Paris during the Revolution, returning about 1797. Clodion sought new patrons among Napoleon’s entourage, but his style appealed more to the world of Fragonard than to the admirers of David, and demand for his work diminished.

Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.