Salon of 1779
The Salon of 1779 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 3 October 1779. Held during the reign of Louis XVI it featured submissions from leading painters, sculptors and architects of the Ancien régime. It took place while France was at war, having entered the American War of Independence against Britain the previous year. France and its ally Spain attempted to invade Britain with the unsuccessful Armada of 1779.
François-André Vincent enjoyed success with his history painting President Mole Manhandled by Insurgents, depicting a scene from the Fronde. Vincent was a noted painter of the Neoclassical style and a rival of Jacques-Louis David, then still living in Rome. Neoclassicism had by this stage largely displaced rococo. Vincent and David's mentor Joseph-Marie Vien sent a painting from Italy where he was director of the French Academy in Rome. Noël Hallé displayed Agesilaus of Sparta With His Children. Nicolas-Guy Brenet's Metellus Saved by His Son features a scene from Ancient Rome where Augustus spared an enemy following the Battle of Actium. Brenet also produced the now lost Cincinnatus Made Dictator.
In portraiture Joseph Duplessis displayed a picture of Benjamin Franklin, the well-known American Ambassador to the Court of Versailles. Franklin cultivated an image of a plain-dressed American, which this portrait reflects. It become the iconic image of Franklin, which Duplessis returned to a number of times. Duplessis also exhibited a portrait of the Count of Provence, who would later become king following the Bourbon Restoration. In addition was his Portrait of the Portrait of the Comte d'Angiviller whose position as director of the Bâtiments du Roi, made him the effective minister of culture.
Jacques-Antoine Beaufort's The Death of Calamus featured a scene with Alexander the Great, commissioned by Louis XVI. Destroyed during the Second World War, a preparatory oil sketch survives and is in the Prado in Madrid. Jean Siméon Chardin exhibited at the Salon for the last time, where his painting Un Jacquet was admired by Victoire of France. In sculpture Pierre Julien displayed his statue Dying Gladiator. Jean-Antoine Houdon produced a bust of Benjamin Franklin, that had drawn intrigued visitors to his studio, as well others featuring Molière, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire.