Jean-Pierre-Antoine Tassaert
Encyclopedia
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
21 January 1788) was a minor sculptor of Flemish
Flemish people
The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...
extraction, who worked in the manner of Falconnet
Étienne Maurice Falconet
Étienne Maurice Falconet is counted among the first rank of French Rococo sculptors, whose patron was Mme de Pompadour.-Life:Falconet was born to a poor family in Paris...
. He went to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
as a young man to work in the atelier of Michel-Ange Slodtz, a member of a dynasty of designer-sculptors working for the royal account. After Slodtz's death in 1764, he emerged as a sculptor in his own right. In 1774, after a successful decade in Paris, he was called to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, where he was appointed court sculptor to Frederick the Great and executed decorative sculptures for Potsdam
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....
. He directed the courses in sculpture at the Academy, where his major pupil and successor was Johann Gottfried Schadow
Johann Gottfried Schadow
Johann Gottfried Schadow was a German sculptor.-Biography:Schadow was born in Berlin, where his father was a poor tailor....
.
He was the nephew of Jean-Pierre Tassaert (1651-1725), and the grandson of Pierre Tassaert (master of the painters' guild 1635- ca 1692/93) both
painters of Antwerp.
Selected works
- Pyrrha, or Population, white marble ca. 1773–74 (plaster model exhibited at the Salon of 1773Paris SalonThe Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...
). Commissioned by Joseph Marie Terray, the Abbé TerrayJoseph Marie TerrayJoseph Marie Terray was a Controller-General of Finances during the reign of Louis XV of France, an agent of fiscal reform, cut short by his death....
for the sculpture gallery in his Paris residence, rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, as a pair to Augustin PajouAugustin PajouAugustin Pajou was a French sculptor, born in Paris. At eighteen he won the Prix de Rome, and at thirty exhibited his Pluton tenant Cerbère enchaîné .-Selected works:...
's Mercury, or Commerce. Michael Levey suggests that the commission is most likely to have dated from Terray's brief tour as Director of the Bâtiments du RoiBâtiments du RoiThe Bâtiments du Roi was a division of Department of the household of the Kings of France in France under the Ancien Régime. It was responsible for building works at the King's residences in and around Paris.-History:...
. - Putti representing Painting and Sculpture, white marble ca 1774–78 also commissioned by Terray as one of four groups by various sculptors representing the arts and sciences. (National Gallery of ArtNational Gallery of ArtThe National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
, Washington DC, on-line catalogue) - Cupid Preparing to Shoot his Arrow (MalmaisonMalmaisonMalmaison may be:* Château de Malmaison, Rueil-Malmaison, France* Greenwood LeFlore's home, Greenwood, Mississippi, USA* Malmaison, a UK hotel chain....
). - Portrait bust of Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1715 - 1769). (Louvre Museum)
- Catherine the Great as Minerva Protectress of the Arts (Hermitage MuseumHermitage MuseumThe State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
) "...a work more Flemish than French in its somewhat confused and untidy Baroque idiom, and altogether somewhat old-fashioned" (Levey 1993:151).. - (attributed) Seated Venus Filling a Quiver with Roses, white marble (Musée Cognac-Jay, Paris). on-line catalogue)