TIENNE

MAURICE

See also:

• TIENNE MAURICE FALCONET (1716-1791)

FALCONET (1716-1791)  , French sculptor, was born in Paris . His parents were poor, and he was at first apprenticed to a carpenter, but some of his clay-figures, with the making of which he occupied his leisure hours, attracted the notice of the sculptor Lemoine, who made him his pupil . He found time to study Greek and Latin, and also wrote several brochures on art . His artistic productions are characterized by the same defects as his writings, for though manifesting consider-able cleverness and some power of imagination, they display in many cases a false and fantastic taste, the result, most probably, of an excessive striving after originality . One of his most successful statues was one of Milo of Crotona, which secured his admission to the membership of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1754 . AE the invitation of the empress Catherine he went in 1766 to St Petersburg, where he executed a colossal statue of Peter the Great in bronze . In 1788 he became director of the French Academy of Painting . Many of Falconet's works, being placed in churches, were destroyed at the time of the French Revolution . His " Nymphe descendant au bain " is in the Louvre . Among his writings are Reflexions sur la sculpture (Paris, 1768), and Observations sur la statue de Marc-Aurele (Paris, 1771) . The whole were collected under the title of Euvres litteraires (6 vols., Lausanne, 1781–1782 ; 3 vols., Paris, 1787) .