Jean-Pierre-Antoine Tassaert

Jean-Pierre-Antoine Tassaert (Antwerp [He was baptised 19 August 1727.] 1727 — Berlin 21 January 1788) was a minor sculptor of Flemish extraction, who worked in the manner of Falconnet. He went to Paris 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, where he was appointed court sculptor to Frederick the Great and executed decorative sculptures for Potsdam. He directed the courses in sculpture at the Academy, where his major pupil and successor was Johann Gottfried Schadow.

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) bothpainters of Antwerp.

elected works

*"Pyrrha, or Population", white marble ca. 1773-74 (plaster model exhibited at the Salon of 1773). Commissioned by Joseph Marie Terray, the Abbé Terray for the sculpture gallery in his Paris residence, as a pair to Augustin Pajou'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 Roi." [Michael Levey, "Painting and Sculpture in France, 1700-1789" (1993:151) ]
*Putti representing "Painting" and "Sculpture", white marble ca 1774-78 also commissioned by Terray as one of four groups by various sculptors [The other sculptors were Clodion, whose "Music" and "Poetry" are at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, Jean-Jacques Caffiéri, whose "Geometry" and "Architecture", signed and dated 1776, are at Waddesdon Manor, and Félix Lecomte; of the four Michel Levey found Tassaert the least interesting.] representing the arts and sciences. (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, [http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pinfo?Object=41452+0+none on-line catalogue] )
*"Cupid Preparing to Shoot his Arrow" (Malmaison).
*"Portrait bust of Christian Fürchtegott Gellert" (1715 - 1769). (Louvre Museum)
*"Catherine the Great as Minerva Protectress of the Arts" (Hermitage Museum) "...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). [http://www.paris.fr/portail/Culture/Portal.lut?page_id=6643&document_type_id=4&document_id=16967&portlet_id=15117&multileveldocument_sheet_id=2060 on-line catalogue] )

Notes