Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828)

Jefferson, the third President of the new republic of the United States, was an early American hero whose vision expressed much of the philosophy of the Enlightenment period, a time of revolutionary political and social change in France and America. In America, the Enlightenment was represented by the political concepts of the American Revolution and the precepts of leaders like Jefferson. Houdon was "sympathetic to the principles of freedom and equality that lay behind the American Revolution." Houdon's depiction of American Forefathers established their likeness for prosperity (Getty exhibition). The Enlightenment era was one of thought and philosophy, and a