Deseine, Claude-Andre

Born and died in Paris; born deaf. Studied at the Academie Royale in Paris, and exhibited at a Paris salon. Executed several portrait busts, many of them commissions; his bust of Mirabeau won the Jacobin prize. During the French Revolution, he made several busts of prominent Republican leaders, and in 1797 executed a bust of Napoleon Bonaparte. Also notable is that, in a time when deaf persons were generally not given the legal protections and privileges given to hearing people, a court recognized him as having the right of inheritance. He seems to have retired from artistic life around 1801.