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15

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In the autumn of 1785, Mr Jefferson engaged Mr Houdon, the most eminent portrait sculptor in Paris, to make a statue of Washington for the city of Richmond. Mr. Houdon, whose portrait I painted at Paris in 1809, informed me of this commission, and the particulars of his visit to Mount Vernon, where he made, on the living face of Washington, a plaster mould, preparatory for the clay impression, which was then modelled into the form of a bust, & immediately before it could shrink by drying, moulded & cast it in plaster, to be afterwards, in Paris copied in marble.
[[left margin]] terwards, Paris pied ta [[/left margin]]

[[stamp]] ARCHIVES OF AMERICAN ART [[/stamp]]

Among the articles widely circulated through newspapers, to fill up a chapter of fabulous history, an extraordinary one, emanating from some erroneous impressions, States that Houdon after taking a mould of Washington's face persisted to make a cast of his entire person --The Hero & The Sage (says the writer) [[strikethrough]] the man of supreme dignity, of spotless purity & the most veiled modesty laid his sacred person bare & prone before the eyes of art & affection??" [[/strikethrough]]  The case of the body being life in the  care of his workman, but that of the head [[strikethrough]] was [[/strikethrough]] reserved in his own hands"
To disprove