Salon of 1775

The Salon of 1775 was an art exhibition held at the Louvre in Paris. Part of the regular series of Salons organised by the Académie Royale, it ran from 25 August to 25 September 1775. It was the first to be held following the death of Louis XV who had reigned in France for sixty years. In May he had been succeeded by his grandson Louis XVI who would later be overthrown and executed during the French Revolution.
Reflecting the emerging Neoclassicism Joseph-Marie Vien displayed his history painting Venus, Wounded by Diomedes, Is Saved by Iris. The sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon established a number of works that helped establish his reputation as one of the foremost portrait sculptures in Europe. These included busts of the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, the soprano Sophie Arnould and the ministers Jacques Turgot and the Marquis de Miromesnil. Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau's history scene The Return of Belisarius featured Belisarius, a popular subject in art during the era. Étienne Aubry displayed his genre paintings Paternal Love and The Shepherdess of the Alps.
Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo exhibited The Coronation of Saint Louis, depicting a scene from medieval French history. François-Hubert Drouais appearing at the Salon for the final time submitted a portrait of Clotilde of France, a younger sister of the new monarch, playing the guitar. The landscape painter Joseph Vernet produced two companion pieces The Approach to a Fair and Constructing a Main Road as part of a commission from the Controller-General of Finances Joseph Marie Terray. Amongst the works displayed by Hubert Robert is the now lost large Le décintrement du pont de Neuilly, a sketch for which is in the Musée Carnavalet.