biography
| name: |
Falconet, Etienne Maurice
|
pronunciation:
[falkohnay]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1716–91)
|
| biography:
| Sculptor, born in Paris, France. He studied under Lemoyne, became a member of the Académie Royale, and exhibited regularly at the Salon Royal (1745–65). He was appointed director of the Sèvres porcelain factory (1757–66). His figures of Venus, bathers, and similar subjects epitomize the Rococo style of the period of Louis XV. A favourite sculptor of Mme de Pompadour, he created for her ‘L'Amour Menaçant’ and ‘La Baigneuse’ (1757). He was invited to Russia in 1766 by Catherine II to execute what is his most impressive work, an equestrian monument to Peter I in St Petersburg. A literate and educated man, he was appointed professor at the Académie in 1783, the year in which he suffered a stroke. He was also an art theorist, publishing Réflexions sur la Sculpture (1761) and several other volumes in his later years |
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