Circle of Jean Pierre Antoine Tassaert (Antwerp 1727 - 1788 Berlin), French, Late 18th Century

Tomasso Brothers Fine Art, New York, 2009;

Christie's Paris, 7 November 2012, lot 149;

Where acquired by Aso O. Tavitian.

Tomasso Brothers Fine Art, New York, Scultura II, 15-24 October, 2009, no. 26, p. 88.

This charming bust of a child corresponds to Tassaert's stylistic vocabulary. The bust is very similar to the head of the figure of Painting in the allegorical marble group of Painting and Sculpture in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (acc. no. 1952.5.110), particularly in the pronounced brow lines, wide-set, fixed eyes, round face, and shock of hair.

Of Flemish origin, Tassaert was born in 1727 in Antwerp. After a few years spent in London with François Roubillac, he settled in Paris in the studio of Michel-Ange Slodtz. He was received in 1769 at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, as an associate. His main clients in France were the Fermier-General Bouret and the Comptroller-General of Finances Abbé Terray. In 1774 Tassaert was appointed Court Sculptor by Frederick the Great of Prussia after which he moved to Berlin. Greatly influenced by the sculptor Edmé Bouchardon and the painter François  Boucher, he was himself a teacher of the German neoclassical sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow.