Portrait of Christoph Willibald Gluck
Medium
terracotta
Dimensions
49.5 × 40 × 28.5 cm · with base: 64 × 39.3 × 28.1 cm
Classification
Sculpture
Department
European Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
Accession Number
1988.59
Tags
male
About this artwork
A well-known composer of the 1700s, Gluck reformed opera by bringing unprecedented simplicity and sincerity to his music and staging, qualities shared by Houdon’s bust. This portrait, by depicting Gluck’s pockmarked face, was perceived as a natural and truthful representation. Yet, he would never have appeared publicly with unkempt hair and an open collar, which constituted the standard for representing an artist.