Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu

myminifactory

This statue was commissioned in 1778. The plaster model, presented at the Salon of 1779, was highly criticised. Clodion had depicted the writer in an agitated pose, in a costume partially suggestive of antiquity.The scolptor adopted a different approach for the marble version, depicting Montesquieu in the formal attire of a parliamentarian, leafing through his book The Spirit of the Laws.