Houdon L'Ecorche Sculptures

HISTORY- A variety of life-size plaster casts were made from Jean-Antoine Houdon's (1741- 1828) "L'Ecorche" sculpture sometime after 1766 when the original figure was first conceived. The sculpture is a "flayed" version of Houdon's sculpture of St. John the Baptist. Some editions have a tree supporting the left side of the figure, this version does not. In 1996, Mr. Keropian was asked to restore the National Academy of Design's Houdon L'Ecorche plaster life-size version. Apart from the obvious deterioration of the Houdon sculpture seen below he was missing both of his arms. Mr. Keropian found fragments of the right arm and fastened them together creating an accurate right arm and hand. However he was unable to find a left arm at the time, so the left arm was sculpted by Mr. Keropian using the right arm and one picture as a guide. A mold was made off the plaster Houdon figure and copies have been made available. There are noticable "piece-mold" seam lines on this figure, so the detail is very good. The total height of the figure with the base is six feet, and the arms are Roman jointed.

NEW HOUDON L'ECORCHE COPIES- For decades small 27" tall plaster copies of the L'Ecorche have been circulating world wide and after numerous generations of molds and castings, this sculpture has completely lost its charm. So Mr. Keropian has partnered with Sculptor/Animator Michael Defeo to bring us two new versions scanned directly from this life-size Houdon L'Ecorche. The new technology of 3-d printing has allowed them to create not only a very accurate copy of the life-size sculpture but the ability to add more detail in areas like the hands and feet and create a new left arm with information found from plaster copies in France.

Resin copies are available of the Houdon L'Ecorche at life size, 12" h and 28" h ( figure height ). These copies are as accurate as possible to the original Jean- Antoine Houdon's L'Ecorche Sculpture. They are created and sold exclusively through Keropian Sculpture LLC.

Please inquire about pricing.