# La Fontaine [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [JULIEN, Pierre]() - Date: 1751-1800 - Technique: Marble ## Commentary Julien seems never to have executed any portrait busts or monumental groups. Even in the La Fontaine he scarcely attempted to produce accurate portraiture but concentrated on a lively, perhaps suitably anecdotal, effect, with a generalized shrewdness and vivacity in the subject's features. Julien's delicacy of handling is apparent not only in the somewhat over-detailed treatment of the hair but also in the frieze of bas-reliefs, illustrating scenes from the fables, which decorate the pedestal. The fables are yet more patently present in the slightly porcine fox, with one paw on a book, which creeps out from La Fontaine's cloak and peers up at him. ## Related artworks - [Amalthaea \(Girl Tending a Goat\)]() - [Amalthaea \(Girl Tending a Goat\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()