Design for a Medal: Bâtiments du Roy, 1740
18th century
Medium
Red chalk; red chalk wash surrounding design
Dimensions
8 7/16 x 8 7/16 in. (21.4 x 21.4 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1961
Accession Number
61.165.3
Tags
Art Historical Context
Edme Bouchardon’s *Design for a Medal: Bâtiments du Roy* captures a moment of royal patronage in mid-eighteenth-century France. Created around 1740, the drawing served as a preparatory study for an official medal issued by the Bâtiments du Roy, the administrative branch responsible for the king’s architectural projects under Louis XV. Bouchardon, celebrated for both his sculpture and his refined draughtsmanship, brought a neoclassical clarity to such official commissions, blending allegorical figures with precise architectural references. Executed in red chalk with a subtle wash border, the s...
About the Artist
Edme Bouchardon · 1698–1762
Born 29 May 1698; died 27 July 1762. Bouchardon was a student of Guillaume Coustou, and won the prix de Rome in 1722. He spent ten years (1722-1732) in Rome, Italy working on various projects for Pope Clement XII. In 1732 Bouchardon was recalled to Paris and named sculptor to the king. Bouchardon became a professor at the Académie Royale in 1746. He worked on an equestrian monument of Louis XV, Ki...