Etienne Maurice Falconet (French, 1716 to 1791)
Etienne Maurice Falconet belongs to the first rank of French Rococo sculptors, and enjoyed the patronage of Madame de Pompadour and Catherine the Great. Although he was born into an impoverished Parisian family, Falconet was able to escape an uncertain future through his precocious talent for modeling in clay.
His skill attracted the attention of the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, who trained him personally. By 1754 he had become a member of the Academie des beaux-arts, and came to prominent public attention in the Salons of 1755 and 1757 with his marbles of L’ Amour and the Nymphe descendant au bain, which is now at the Louvre.
In 1757 Falconet was appointed director of the sculpture atelier of the new Manufacture royale de porcelaine at Sevres, where he brought new life to the production of small figurines in unglazed soft-paste porcelain that had been a specialty at the predecessor of the Sevres manufactory, Vincennes.
Falconet remained at the Sevres post until he was invited to Russia by Catherine the Great in September 1766 to execute a colossal bronze statue of Peter the Great. In 1788, he became director of the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Many of Falconet’s religious works, commissioned for churches, were destroyed at the time of the French Revolution. The survival rate for his private commissions, however, was fortunately much better.
Information courtesy of Heritage Auction Galleries, June 2009.