To Benjamin Franklin from Ferdinand Grand, [after 10 December?] 1784
From Ferdinand Grand
AL: American Philosophical Society
[after December 10, 1784?]6
M houdon Sculpteur a demandé á M Grand de le presenter á Monsieur Franklin relativement a la Statue de M Wasington.7
M Grand á cru devoir au prealable Scavoir Si Monsieur Franklin le juge á propos, en ce Cas M Grand le prie de vouloir bien lui donner Son Jour & heure—8
6. Based on the assumption that Houdon would have visited BF after having discussed the GW sculpture with TJ; see the following note.
7. In July, 1784, Gov. Harrison had written to both TJ and BF, asking them to commission in Europe a marble statue of GW for the state of Virginia: XLII, 452–3. TJ received his letter at the end of November, when he was too ill to go to Passy; he therefore asked Houdon—recommended to him as the best sculptor in France—to come to his residence for an interview. The enthusiastic Houdon insisted that a superior likeness could be achieved only if he were to spend a few weeks with GW and make a plaster model from life, rather than relying on an oil portrait (as Harrison had proposed). TJ reported this to GW on Dec. 10, saying that he had not yet met with BF, but if the latter concurred, they would send Houdon to Virginia. By Jan. 12, TJ and BF had met and agreed on Houdon. TJ reported to Harrison that the artist would keep his expenses reasonable, and was even willing to interrupt his current work (sculpting the king of France, among other luminaries) and sail to America with the April packet: Jefferson Papers, VII, 566–7, 599–601.
8. Houdon sculpted a bust of Ferdinand Grand during this period. It may be that the bust of Grand that Thomas Ruston saw in BF’s “Gallery” on April 10, 1785, was cast from it: Louis Réau, Houdon: sa vie et son œuvre (2 vols., Paris, 1964), 11, 32, pl. LX; Thomas Ruston’s journal [March 24–May 5, 1785], entry of April 10 (Library of Congress).