Cire Trudon's Louise

Louise was the daughter of the architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart (1739-1813), 

famous for designing the Stock Exchange building in Paris

and transforming the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Thanks to his mother who was a painter and 

his father who was a caretaker at the Louvre museum, 

Brongniart became acquainted at a very early age with the best sculptors of his time. 

In 1777, he commissioned one such sculptor, Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828), 

(considered by many to be the most brilliant portraitist of the 18th century) 

to sculpt in stone the portrait of his daughter, Louise.

S.C.