Étienne maurice falconet biography

Étienne Maurice Falconet (1 December 1716 – 24 January 1791) was a French baroque, rococo and neoclassical sculptor, best-known for his equestrian statue of.
Étienne Maurice Falconet was a French baroque, rococo and neoclassical sculptor, best-known for his equestrian statue of Peter the Great, the Bronze Horseman, in St. Petersburg, Russia, and for the small statues he produced in series for the Royal.
Étienne-Maurice Falconet was a sculptor who adapted the classical style of the French Baroque to an intimate and decorative Rococo ideal.

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Etienne Maurice Falconet

Sculptor
Born: Paris - 1 December 1716
Died: Paris - 24 January 1791

One of the most celebrated sculptors of his age, Etienne Maurice Falconet bridged the gap between late baroque and neoclassical sculpture. It was to Falconet that Denis Diderot dedicated his chapter on sculpture in the Encyclopedie and several of his works are displayed in the Louvre and the State Hermitage Museum.

Bronze Horseman - monument to Peter the Great by Etienne Maurice Falconet
Falconet's sculpture of Cupid at the Hermitage Museum

Today, Falconet is probably best known as the creator of the Bronze Horseman, the equestrian statue of Peter the Great that is undoubtedly St. Petersburg's most famous monument. Falconet was recommended to Catherine the Great by Denis Diderot and Melchior Grimm, with both of whom she corresponded extensively. Falconet arrived in St. Petersburg with his family and his young assistant, Marie-Anne Collot, in 1766. It took the pair 12 years to create the Bronze Horseman, and Falconet left Russia in

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Falconet Etienne Maurice was born on December 1, 1716, in Paris to a poor family. He was a member of the French Academy in 1754 and was a director of a manufacturing company for several years. He was considered as the best Rococo sculptors the era had ever received.

Early Life

Born into a poor family, Falconet could not train his skills, unlike many other sculptors. Falconet was an apprentice to a carpenter, who made clay figures during his leisure time. It came to a notice to a sculptor named Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, who made Falconet his pupil thereon along with Pigalle.

‘Milo of Croton’ was one of his earliest works which made him a member of the French Academy in 1754. He first came into the spotlight in the Paris salon after completion of his marble sculptures L’Amour, 1754 and the Nymphe Descendant at Bain (“The Bather”), 1757.

The Beginning of His Career

Among his many patrons which included the powerful Madame de Pompadour, who secured him the post of a director of the sculpture atelier of the new at the Royal Porcelain Factory at Sev

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Biography

French sculptor and writer on art, a pupil of Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne. Falconet was perhaps the most quintessentially Rococo of all French sculptors, his forté being gently erotic figures such as the celebrated Bather (1757) in the Louvre. Like many other of his works, this was reproduced in porcelain by the Sèvres factory, of which he was director from 1757 to 1766, a position that he gained through the influence of his patron Mme de Pompadour.

Falconet had other sides to his talent, however, and his masterpiece - the equestrian statue of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg - is in a completely different vein. He went to Russia in 1766, recommended to Catherine II by Diderot, and left in 1778, the statue being unveiled in 1782. The huge horse is represented with its forelegs raised and unsupported - a daring technical feet - and the heroic vigour of the statue gives it a place among the greatest examples of the type.

Falconet suffered a stroke in 1783 and thereafter produced no more sculpture, devoting himself to writing. A six-volume edition of his writings had alr