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Théodon, Jean(-Baptiste)
(b Vendrest, Seine-et-Marne, 26 Sept 1645; d Paris, 18 Jan 1713). French sculptor. As a protégé of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV’s Surintendant des Bâtiments, in 1676 he was sent as a student to the Académie de France in Rome without having taken part in the usual competition. He lived at the Académie until 1690, when the new director, La Teulière, had him removed, considering him unruly, lazy and violent. During his time at the Académie he carved two marble terms of Summer and Winter for the gardens at the château of Versailles (in situ), began work on a copy of the antique group Paetus and Arria (marble, largely carved by Pierre Le Pautre (ii); Paris, Tuileries Gardens) and carved to his own designs marble statues of Atlas and Phaetusa (Versailles, Château). He was often helped in his work by the Italian sculptor Lorenzo Ottoni. In 1678 he became a member of the Accademia di S Luca and was a professor there in 1688–9. He had a number of powerful protectors in Rome, including Cardinal César d’Estrées (1628–1714), Charles d’Albert d’Ailly, Duc de Chaulnes (1624–98), and Léon Potier, Abbé de Gesvres (1656–1744). Pope Innocent XII employed him with Ottoni and Michele Maglia ( fl 1678–1700) to execute bronze decorations (1692–7; fragments, Rome, St Peter’s) for the baptistery at St Peter’s to the designs of Carlo Fontana , to provide bronze and marble sculpture for Fontana’s tomb of Queen Christina of Sweden, also in St Peter’s (1697–8; in situ), and to carve a marble statue of St Callistus for the portico of S Maria in Trastevere (1702; in situ). In 1702–3 Clement XI (reg 1700–21) gave Théodon and Ottoni artistic direction of the sculptural decoration for Fontana’s Piazza Retta leading from Bernini’s oval piazza in front of St Peter’s, for which Théodon carved three of the fifty marble statues on the balustrade (St Francesca Romana, St Cecilia and St Crescentino, all in situ). In 1703–5 the Pope commissioned two marble statues of St Peter and St Paul for S Giovanni in Laterano. Two terracotta models (Berlin, Skulpgal.) have been suggested as Théodon’s unaccepted submissions for this project. As well as his work with Ottoni, Théodon collaborated with the Frenchman Pierre Legros (ii), providing the dramatic Baroque marble group Faith Crushing Idolatry (1695–9) for the altar in the chapel of S Ignazio in the Gesù (Legros carved its pendant group, Religion Overthrowing Heresy) and the marble relief Joseph Distributing Corn to the Egyptians (1702–5) for the chapel of the Monte di Pietà (pendant by Legros, Tobit Lending Money to Gabael; all in situ).
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