Dantan The Younger (1800-1869).
Portrait of Joseph François Ducoux.
Plaster.
Signed and dated « Dantan Je 1865 ».
Trained in their youth by their woodcarver father, the two Dantan brothers, Antoine-Laurent and Jean-Pierre, entered the École des Beaux-Arts in François-Joseph Bosio's studio a few years apart. While the elder brother followed the academic path, the younger one devoted himself to less serious works, quickly making a name for himself in the field of caricature. His sculpted caricature busts representing the celebrities of politics, arts and letters of his time were very successful: Blazac himself was flattered to have two busts representing him, attesting to his fame.
Many politicians, composers, writers and artists of the nineteenth century were represented by Dantan. These caricatures were very successful and inspired Honoré Daumier for his portraits of members of parliament exhibited at the Musée d'Orsay.
Dantan's caricatures were accompanied by a rebu, here the letters "du" which surmount a torso. It is the politician Joseph François Ducoux who is represented. City councilor in Blois and president of the Masonic lodge, he was prefect of the Paris police force. After 1851, he was dismissed from politics, but he was elected in 1871 to the Loir-et-Cher parliament.
