François Masson, a sculptor with a career in three acts

Born during the reign of Louis, the Revolution then the Empire. Despite his fame at his death, Masson did not benefit from the historiographical fortune of his illustrious contemporaries. Recently published, the double monograph dedicated to the brothers Louis Le Masson and François Masson finally does justice to this talented sculptor, many of whose works are preserved in Versailles.

Years of training for first orders

Like his older brother Louis, a future architect and engineer, François benefited from the instruction provided by the monks of the Benedictine abbey of Lyre, on which the forge depended. The two brothers' talents for drawing earned them the attention of Marshal François Victor de Broglie, first Baron Fossier of Normandy, and his brother Charles, Bishop of Noyon. Louis was thus admitted to the Royal School of Bridges and Roads, in Paris, and his younger brother into the workshop of Charles Guillaume Cousin, in Pont-Audemer, around 1764. Renowned for his talents as a portraitist, this sculptor instilled the rudiments of his art to his young student, who then executed the busts of his protectors (lost), as well as the medallion profiles of his mother and father, the latter being signed and dated 1766 (Rouen, Musée des Beaux-arts). That year, the sculptor left his native Normandy for the capital. Indeed, on the recommendation of Cousin, a former student of Nicolas Coustou, he was able to join one of the most prestigious workshops of the moment, that of Guillaume II Coustou, the last representative of this famous dynasty of artists.

We know nothing of these years of apprenticeship with the master who then began to work on his ultimate masterpiece, the mausoleum of the Dauphin (installed in the cathedral of Sens in 1777), but we can assume that There he established lasting links with some of his classmates, notably Pierre Julien. Despite Coustou's relationship with the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, Masson remained a stranger to the institution and was never the king's sculptor.

As early as 1769, his patron the Bishop of Noyon entrusted him with the sculptured decoration in stone and lead of the new fountain which, in the heart of the city, was to celebrate the marriage of the Dauphin and Marie-Antoinette. Armed with the Parisian lesson, Masson executed the various allegories on the theme of the Franco-Austrian alliance in this neoclassical and sensitive style dear to Coustou. Above all, this first public commission offered the artist a most profitable experience in the field of monumental sculpture with which he would be confronted several times. Satisfied, the bishop allowed his protégé to perfect his skills through contact with antiquity and the great masters and financed his trip to Rome from 1771 to 1775-1777. This stay is poorly documented but the preserved sketchbook, reproduced in full in the monograph, attests to Masson's fascination with the great Baroque statuary of Pierre II Legros and, above all, Bernini. Finally, although not a resident of the king, he undoubtedly attended the French Academy in Rome where Jacques Louis David stayed and, more generally, the large community of French artists among whom Philippe Laurent Roland stands out. , a sculptor with whom he remained close throughout his life.

In 1777, Masson was called to Metz to execute the imposing sculpted decoration of the Governor's palace, then rebuilt by Marshal de Broglie, master of the Three Bishoprics. Entrusted to Charles Louis Clérisseau, the strictly neoclassical architecture of this building (current courthouse) highlights the statues of illustrious men and the large bas-reliefs recounting features of local history. These stone paintings mixing allegorical discourse and truth of costume were part of this celebration of the national past that the power in Paris then encouraged. In addition to the monumental decor, Masson sought to establish a solid reputation as a portrait painter. Indeed, through his brother, the sculptor received the order for the marble bust of the founder and director of the École des Ponts-et-Chaussées, Jean Rodolphe Perronet. A masterpiece of the Enlightenment, this portrait combining naturalist sensitivity and art of effect seems to be the very allegory of the Engineer, surrounded by his work instruments under the auspices of Minerva, the sculpted goddess of Wisdom and Knowledge on the column.

Now known and socially established through his marriage to the daughter of a royal officer, Masson left Metz definitively in 1784. With his family, he settled in Paris and set out to conquer the artistic scene.

Parisian successes during the Revolutionary period

Although little known, the first years in the capital were probably difficult because, not being an academician, Masson could neither exhibit at the Salon nor claim to obtain a royal commission. Thus, its livelihood essentially depended on private clients. In fact, during the 1780s, he turned to cabinet sculpture. He thus executed decorative works, such as vases or models of clocks, as well as statuettes with mythological or romantic subjects. Known through some sales catalogs and, above all, its inventory after death (transcribed in the monograph), this production, which has now disappeared, is part of this more general vogue for light themes to which Julien or Clodion sacrificed, among others. To attract Parisian collectors eager for copies of famous antiques, in 1789 Masson obtained authorization to make “some studies” based on Cleopatra of the Belvedere, executed by Corneille Van Clève for the gardens of Versailles a century earlier. In 1791, he returned to the royal domain, then empty of its occupants, to create a model of the Borghese Nymph by Coysevox, on the low parterre of Latona (deposited in the Louvre museum). He designed a pendant in the form of a marble statuette of a Nymph on the shore (not located), which he exhibited at the Salon of 1793, the first in which he was able to participate.

Indeed, although we do not know whether he joined the protest movements, Masson benefited from the political and ideological upheavals which, from 1789, hit traditional institutions. Gathered around David in an Arts Commune, the artists obtained from the National Assembly that the Salon of 1791 would no longer be reserved only for the king's painters and sculptors, but open to all. This first Free Salon foreshadowed the suppression, two years later, of the royal academies. Despite the difficulties of the time, the Revolution was favorable to the sculptor's career. Thus, he had his part in the immense decorative project which, from 1791, transformed the Sainte-Geneviève church in Paris into a temple of the great men of the country. Project manager, Antoine Chrysostome Quatremère, known as Quatremère de Quincy, mobilized more than twenty eminent sculptors responsible for replacing the religious decorations with a new civic iconography. In addition to one of the pendants adorning the domed naves inside the building, Masson executed a plaster group representing A warrior dying in the arms of the Fatherland placed under the peristyle (disappeared). This prestigious location attests that Masson was now among the most prominent artists.

Prudent, the sculptor sought to accommodate the National Convention and, shortly before the Great Terror of 1794, offered the government a plaster statue of Liberty. In the meantime, he took the initiative of executing La République, for which he waited a long time for payment. Intended for the salon preceding the meeting room of the Convention, at the Palais des Tuileries, these works, which have now disappeared, are among the first republican allegories recorded.

The sculptor's career took off again during the Directory. The installation of the Council of Five Hundred at the Palais Bourbon led to numerous adjustments. The meeting room, in particular, had to reflect the ancient republican ideal that this new democratic assembly claimed. In the six niches framing the tribune, the architects Leconte and Gisors placed statues of statesmen and orators from the Greek and Roman worlds, including Cicero, which Masson executed in 1797. Contrary to the initial project, this work does not was never translated into marble and has now disappeared. In addition, the new regime guarantees the sculptor material security as well as a workshop by appointing him for life “statuary and restorer of the objects of art of the Palace and the National Garden of the Tuileries”. Through this function, he obtained a commission envied by the main sculptors of the time: the monument to the glory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, intended to be executed in marble in the Tuileries garden. Chaudet, Stouf, and Moitte competed against each other during the competitions which punctuated the revolutionary period, wishing to glorify the author of the Social Contract. As for Houdon, holder of the philosopher's death mask, he considered himself his official portraitist. Exhibited at the Salon of 1799 before being installed in the Tuileries, the monument by Masson celebrated Rousseau's character as both a philanthropist and legislator. Like so many works of this period, this plaster group was never translated into marble and disappeared after 1836. Only the plaster model preserved at the Louvre preserves the memory of this important commission which established Masson as one of the principal sculptors of the Republic.

Alongside these public commissions, the sculptor established himself in Paris as a portraitist. He immortalized the features of aristocrats favorable to the Revolution, such as the Duchess of Aiguillon (around 1790-1793, plaster, private collection) or the new elite of the Directory. Thus, he executed the marble bust of Jean Charles Pichegru in 1797, probably on the occasion of his election to the presidency of the Council of Five Hundred. However, unlike other sculptors of his generation such as Boizot, Chinard, or Corbet, at the end of the Directory Masson did not seek to represent the new rising star, General Bonaparte. The latter, however, would give the now renowned sculptor what he lacked: fame.

Triumph under the Consulate and the Empire

After the revolutionary decade, the Consulate opened a period of stability favorable to the arts. First Consul, Bonaparte consolidated the institutions re-established after the Convention and returned to official command, assisted by Dominique Vivant Denon. Appointed in 1802 as director of the Central Museum of Arts, the latter was the project manager of the artistic policy of the Consulate and then of the Empire, passing orders to the artists he closely controlled. Although the “director of the arts” had an ambivalent appreciation of Masson’s talent, the sculptor was particularly favored by the new regime. Thus, he had his share in the important order of busts of famous men that Bonaparte intended, from 1800, for the ceremonial gallery of the Tuileries Palace, the ultimate place of power. Thus, he executed the marble hermes of Kléber and Caffarelli du Falga, new heroes who respectively died during the Egyptian campaign and at the siege of Saint-Jean-d'Acre (disappeared in the fire of the Tuileries in 1871).

This commemorative dimension assigned to the sculpture is also evident in two other suites. In 1806, six marble statues of Revolutionary generals who died in combat were ordered. Alongside sculptors as prestigious as Houdon (Joubert), Moitte (Custines), and Chaudet (Dugommier), Masson complied with imperial directives by representing Caffarelli du Falga in his very recognizable general's uniform. Going against any idealization or traditional allegorical language, attachment to a form of historical truth also guided the very prestigious order for six marble statues of each of the great dignitaries of the Empire. As for it passed in 1805, this suite was intended for the Throne Room of the Tuileries Palace where, probably due to the poor bearing capacity of the floors, it was never installed. Through the virtuoso treatment of the ceremonial costume and the very sensitive rendering of the model's features, Arch-Treasurer Lebrun by Masson is among the masterpieces of this series, like Louis Bonaparte, Grand Constable of the Empire, by Pierre Cartellier.

At the height of glory, Masson also received numerous private orders from the main political and military figures of the time. His colleagues being monopolized by the great monuments with which Napoleon adorned the capital, such as the Vendôme column or the Carrousel arc, Masson enjoyed a virtual monopoly in the field of sculpted portraits and became, in a way, the bustier of the 'Empire. In addition to the bronze bust of the Emperor himself (around 1805, Arenenberg, Musée Napoléon), he executed, among others, the busts of Anne Charles Lebrun and her father Charles François (marble, Riom, Musée Francisque Mandet) and, above all, of the main men of war made marshals during the promotion of 1804. Thus, he represented Lannes, Masséna, Count Brune, Berthier, Bessières, Lefebvre, Count Sérurier, Kellermann, and even Augereau, marble Hermes that the marshal's widow given at Versailles in 1858.

Decorated with the Legion of Honor in 1803, Masson died in full glory in 1807, struck down by an “acute illness”. In the Historical Notice that he published in memory of his friend who died too soon, the painter Jean-Baptiste Regnault praised the versatility of the artist as well as his singularity, he who, seeking neither "to follow [nor] to reproduce the style of a master or that of a school", was the "pupil of his talent".

François Masson at Versailles

In the Historical Galleries, Louis-Philippe gave a prominent place to the Empire, particularly in the South wing. Completing the system of thirteen painting rooms dedicated, on the garden level, to the campaigns of 1796 to 1811, the adjacent stone gallery was reserved from 1834 for the exhibition of statues and busts of the main personalities of the Revolution, Consulate, and the Empire. To do this, the French king had these suites of marble busts and statues ordered under the Empire and which the Restoration had relegated, for the most part, to reserve. Thus, many of the busts intended for the Gallery of the Consuls of the Tuileries are still in the collections of the castle (exhibited in the Chimay penthouse), just like the statues of generals of the Revolution or the great dignitaries of the Empire (in the gallery low stone of the South wing). Under the July Monarchy, these original sculptures were supplemented by plaster casts of works that were not available, such as the busts of marshals from 1804. Kept by the families of the models, the latter were probably cast for the first time to adorn the hall of the Marshals of the Tuileries, and disappeared in the fire of the palace during the Commune, in 1871. Thus, the overmoldings of these busts executed by François-Henri Jacquet for the Historical Galleries have become precious testimonies of Masson's art portrait.

In fact, since Louis-Philippe, the collections of the Palace of Versailles preserve the greatest number of works by this talented sculptor who happily combined the sensitivity of the Enlightenment and the majesty of the Empire.