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(1) Jean-Pierre-Antoine Tassaert
(bapt Antwerp, 19 Aug 1727; d Berlin, 21 Jan 1788). Sculptor. He trained in Antwerp and London, and from 1744 in Paris with René-Michel Slodtz. In 1769 Tassaert was approved (agréé) at the Académie Royale, Paris; he was never received (reçu). He exhibited frequently at the Salon, mainly small mythological and allegorical figures and groups, and was much patronized by the aristocracy, notably the Marquise de Pompadour (e.g. Friendship Burning Cupid’s Arrows, c. 1776; Philadelphia, PA, Mus. A.). In 1774 he was appointed director of the ‘French studio’ at the Prussian court in Berlin, where his most talented student and assistant was Johann Gottfried Schadow. Tassaert’s main achievement in the revitalized studio was a series of penetratingly characterized portraits (e.g. Moses Mendelssohn, 1785; Berlin, Schloss Charlottenburg). In 1778 and 1781 Frederick II, King of Prussia, commissioned a series of monuments of generals for the Wilhelmplatz in Berlin; Tassaert sculpted General von Seydlitz (1778–81) and General Keith (c. 1780; both Berlin, Berlin Mus.) in marble. His portrayal of General von Seydlitz in contemporary regimental uniform rather than in the usual Roman drapery triggered a debate over public statues’ costumes that was to last into the 1830s.
Part of the Tassaert family
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