VASSÉ, Louis-Claude

(b. 1716 Paris, d. 1772 Paris)

French sculptor. Son and pupil of the decorative sculptor François-Antoine Vassé (1681-1736), he entered Edme Bouchardon’s workshop, becoming his favourite pupil. In 1739 he won the Prix de Rome with a bas-relief representing Jezebel Devoured by Dogs (untraced), and the following year he went to the Académie de France in Rome, returning to Paris in 1745. He was approved (agréé) by the Académie Royale in 1748 and received (reçu) as a full member in 1751 on presentation of a statuette of a Sleeping Shepherd (marble; Paris, Louvre). In 1761 he was made professor at the Académie Royale, and he was appointed Dessinateur de l’Académie des Inscriptions in 1762.

From 1748 he exhibited at the Salon, notably a plaster model of a tomb (1748; untraced) comprising a woman weeping over an urn veiled with her draperies, the type of funerary monument in which he was to specialize in both free-standing and relief formats. In 1750 he exhibited a bust of Benedict XIV, a model of a Weeping Virgin and terracotta sketch models of Daedalus and Nessus as well as a proposal for a public square with an equestrian statue of Louis XV (all untraced).

A Sleeping Shepherd

Vass�’s morceau de reception of a Sleeping Shepherd, presented in 1751, reveals a general indebtedness to Bouchardon accompanied by a sentimental slackness. The pose is too contrived to be convincing. The statue derives from antique prototypes which he reduces and frankly prettifies.

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Comedy

The allegory of Comedy holds a mask in her hand. This work, exhibited at the Salon of 1767, belonged to the collection of Madame Du Barry, mistress of King Louis XV (reigned 1715–1774), at her château in Louveciennes (near Paris).

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Cupid Seated by the Sea and Assembling the Doves of the Chariot of Venus

This marble group, commissioned by the collector Ange Laurent La Live de Jully, was exhibited at the Salon of 1757. It entered two collections in residences near Paris: that of Louis XV’s mistress Madame Du Barry at Louveciennes, then that of Jos�phine de Beauharnais, Napoleon I’s first wife, at Malmaison.

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