Louis-Pierre Deseine


Louis-Pierre Deseine was a French sculptor, who was born and died in Paris. He is known above all for his portrait busts and imaginary portraits.

Life

Deseine trained in several ateliers, notably with Augustin Pajou, whose portrait bust he exhibited at the Salon of 1785. He won a first prize from the Académie, which sent him to study further in Rome.
At the Salon of 1789, he showed a portrait head of Belisarius.
In 1814 he published a history of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, of which he had been a member. He described himself in 1814 as a member of the academies of Copenhagen and of Bordeaux, and as holding the post of first sculptor to the prince de Condé, for whom he had executed statues in the 1780s for the dining room at Chantilly, where some drawings and maquettes are preserved.
His elder brother, the little-known sculptor Claude-André Deseine was a deaf-mute, whose Republican sensibilities and the exaggerated character of his portrait studies has encouraged Michael Levey see him as a contrast to his brother.

Works

Drawings by Deseine are at the musée du Louvre and the musée Condé, Chantilly ; the musée Condé also conserves two projects for the monument to the duc d'Enghien.