Louise and Alexandre were the sons of the architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart (1739-1813), famous for designing the Paris Stock Exchange building and transforming the Père Lachaise cemetery. Thanks to his painter mother and father, guardian of the Louvre museum, Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828) met at an early age the best sculptors of his time, such as Jean Baptiste Pigalle and Jean Baptiste Lemoyne. He is considered to be the "Sculptor of the Enlightenment" and has fixed in stone portraits of important figures of his time, including Tsarina Catherine the Great of Russia, Diderot, Voltaire and Rousseau. As the most brilliant portraitist of the 18th century, Houdon maintained a lifelong interest in the theme of childhood. Brongniart's portraits of children made in 1777 express with strength and tenderness this passion for a subject that never became old fashioned.