Clodion

Clodion or Claude Michel , 1738-1814, French rococo sculptor. He executed several important commissions under Louis XVI but is best remembered for his bas-reliefs and small figure groups in bronze and terra-cotta representing fauns, nymphs, and children. He is represented in the Louvre and in the Metropolitan Museum.

Clodion (real name Claude Michel) (1738–1814). French sculptor (known by the diminutive form of his first name), who created some of the most charming works of his age. The son-in-law of Pajou and the nephew of L.-S. Adam, he trained with the latter and briefly with Pigalle. He produced a few large-scale works, but he excelled chiefly in small statuettes and terracotta figures and groups. They are often of light-hearted classical subjects—nymphs and satyrs and so on—and have the wit and verve of the best Rococo art. After the Revolution he changed his style completely to suit the sterner Neoclassical taste; his later work included carvings on the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (1806–9) in Paris, which was built to commemorate Napoleon's victories.