Conférence - Marie-Anne Collot, sculptrice des Lumières

By Pascale Fourtier-Debert, historian and author of *Marie-Anne Collot, Sculptor of the Enlightenment*, published by Liralest.
Discover the extraordinary life of Marie-Anne Collot, a French sculptor, pupil of Lemoyne, contemporary of Houdon and Pigalle, collaborator of Falconet, friend of Diderot and the sole official portraitist to Catherine II of Russia. Trained in drawing, modelling and sculpture, the ‘little Parisian’, placed by her father as a model in the Louvre workshops, became, thanks to a series of events and encounters, an avant-garde artist whose work was emulated by the greatest sculptors of her time.
Mademoiselle Collot, affectionately nicknamed Mademoiselle Victoire by her friend Diderot, enjoyed a meteoric rise at the Russian court where, at the age of just 18, she held the much-coveted title of ‘portraitist to Catherine II’. Shunned by the Royal Academy, then terrorised by the turmoil of the Revolution, Marie-Anne Collot – who had become immensely wealthy – fled her Parisian home on the Île Saint-Louis to take refuge in Lorraine with her daughter Marie-Lucie.
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