Édouard houssin · (1847–1919)

Leda and the Swan

Technical sheet

ARTIST Édouard Houssin
DATE 1888
MATerial White Carrara marble
DIMENSIONS 98 x 50,5 x 55 cm
 Signature E. Houssin 1888
 PROVENANCE
CONSERVATION  Private Collection • Europe
about the work

The work depicts the myth of Leda, the Spartan princess seduced by Jupiter, who transformed himself into a swan to win her. The composition offers an incarnation of feminine sensuality at once traditional and sublime, a subject taken up time and again by the greatest masters, from Leonardo da Vinci to Michelangelo and Raphael.

The influence of Carpeaux’s La Danse is unmistakable in the anatomical curves and the radiant expression that lights Leda’s face. A diagonal line running through the body lends the whole a vibrant dynamism, an energetic movement characteristic of the Romantic spirit.

The plaster model was awarded at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1887; this recognition led, the following year, to the present version in marble. It stands as arguably the most significant creation of Édouard Houssin to have survived through time.

the ARTIST

Édouard houssin

Douai, 1847 — 1919

Trained from 1856 at the École académique de Douai, Édouard Houssin settled in Paris in 1864 and entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1866, studying in the ateliers of Henri Lemaire and François Jouffroy. A teacher at Douai and, from 1894, at the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, he exhibited regularly at the Salon and earned numerous medals and honours.

Responsible for many public commissions, particularly in the north of France, Houssin was celebrated in his own lifetime. The destruction or theft of nearly 90% of his output during the two World Wars has since made his work rare and relatively little known. A catalogue raisonné, compiled by Arnaud Debève, was devoted to him in 2006.