André-Jean Lebrun, France, 18th century
Made of terracotta. The children wear French clothes.
André-Jean Lebrun (1737-1811) was a French sculptor.
André-Jean Lebrun was born in Paris in 1737. He studied with Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. Lebrun won the grand prize of the Académie Royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1756. He collaborated with the sculptor Pierre-François Berruer (1733-1797) and won a scholarship to the Villa Medici in Rome. In Rome he made a number of sculptures for the Church of San Carlo al Corso. Below it was a statue of Judith. He also made a bust of Pope Clement XIII (1768). He became a member of the Académie de Saint-Luc and the Académie de Marseille. Lebrun was invited to come to Poland on the recommendation of Madame Geoffrin and was appointed chief sculptor to King Stanisław August Poniatowski. He also worked in Saint Petersburg, Russia, where he made a bust of Empress Maria Fyodorovna. In 1804 he became a professor of sculpture at Vilnius University. There he died in 1811.