An antique bronze bust representing Diana the hunter goddess after Jean Antoine Houdon, French, 1741to 1828. Diana is depicted with the side turned wearing a dress on the shoulder gown with elegant drapery and crowned by a crescent head. Bearing an impressed signature: Houdon, under the right shoulder. The surface is covered with a nice brown and greenish patina. Prominent in France during the Enlightenment period of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Jean-Antoine Houdon was a neoclassical sculptor, especially noted for his marble portrait busts and statues. His subjects included Americans Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Robert Fulton, and among his French subjects were Denis Diderot, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Louis XVI and Napoleon Bonaparte. For King Louis, he did numerous statues for the gardens of Versailles. Houdon was a continuous exhibitor at the French Salon, and works included many of the above mentioned personages as well as Prince Henry of Prussia, Catherine of Russia, Voltaire, the playwright Moliere and Marshal de Tourville. Classical French Art, Antique European Metalware, Classic Bronze Sculpture For Collectors.