Этьен Морис Фальконе — sculptor с корнями из Russian Empire
Étienne Maurice Falconet was born in Paris in December 1716 into a family of artisans of very modest means — his father a journeyman joiner, one grandfather a peasant from Savoy, the other a cobbler. He trained under Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, made his public reputation in 1757 with small marble pieces, and spent the following years directing sculpture at the Sèvres porcelain works, where his table figurines were copied across Europe.
In 1766 Catherine II, who wanted an equestrian monument to Peter the Great and had asked Denis Diderot for a recommendation, invited Falconet to Russia on his friend's advice. It was an extraordinary commission for a man who had never made anything larger than a statuette: the finished work would be roughly twice the size of the equestrian Marcus Aurelius in Rome. He accepted, and brought with him his eighteen-year-old pupil Marie-Anne Collot.
The project took twelve years and very nearly did not survive them. Catherine rejected three of Falconet's attempts at the tsar's head; the version finally used was modelled by Collot, working from Peter's death mask and portraits she found in Saint Petersburg. The pedestal — the Thunder Stone, originally some 1,500 tonnes and reckoned the largest stone ever moved by human effort — had to be hauled overland and by water from a bog outside the city. During the casting in 1775 the mould broke and molten bronze escaped, starting fires; the workers fled except the caster Emelyan Khailov, who stayed and saved the pour. The statue was recast and completed.
Falconet did not see it unveiled. He fell out with Catherine and left Russia around 1778, four years before the ceremony in August 1782. He returned to Paris, became Assistant Rector of the Académie royale in 1788, and died there in 1791. Collot married his son and became his daughter-in-law.
Many of his French works were destroyed in the Revolution. The monument in Senate Square survived, acquired its name from Pushkin's 1833 poem, and became one of the defining images of Saint Petersburg and of Russian literature.
"Paris to Saint Petersburg, 1766, at Catherine II's invitation"
История миграцииПрослеживая корни — Saint Petersburg (Russia)
The Bronze Horseman gave Pushkin the title of his poem and Russia one of its central national symbols.
French sculptor brought to Russia by Catherine II on Diderot's recommendation to create an equestrian monument to Peter the Great. He spent twelve years on it before leaving Russia.
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Saint Petersburg (Russia). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.