03 — ARTWORK
Baigneuse
FALCONET, Étienne-Maurice · 1757 →
- MEDIUM
- Marble, height 80 cm
- TYPE
- Other
PALETTE
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THIS REPRODUCTION
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CURRENT LOCATION · Musée du Louvre
- FILE
- 654 × 1300 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
The Baigneuse of 1757 was only the first of Falconet's variations on the theme. It led to a whole range of figures, now standing, now seated, sometimes accompanied by a Cupid, but of which the main purpose always remains a study of the naked female body - a body which does not vary very much in type, being always youthful and slightly immature. Above all, the purpose and the appeal of such work lay in the sense of marbleloosely applied to any hard limestone that can be sawn into thin slabs and will take a good polish so that it is suitable for decorative work; more strictly, it refers to metamorphosed limestones whose structure has been recrystallized by heat or pressure. Marbles are widely disseminated and occur in a great variety of colours and patterns, but certain types have been particularly prized by sculptors. The most famous of Greek white marbles in the ancient world was the close-grained Pentelic, which was quarried at Mount Pentelicon in Attica. The Elgin Marbles are carved in Pentelic. Widely used also were the somewhat coarser-grained translucent white marbles from the Aegean islands of Paros and Naxos. Parian marble was used for the celebrated Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The pure white Carrara marble, quarried at Massa, Carrara, and Pietra Santa in Tuscany from the 3rd century BC, is the most famous of all sculptors' stones. It was used for the Apollo Belvedere, and was much favoured in the Renaissance, particularly by Michelangelo, who often visited the quarries to select material for his work. Neoclassical sculptors also favoured Carrara marble because of its ability to take a smooth, sleek surface, but it can look rather 'dead' compared with some of the finest Greek marbles. turned to flesh. <P> <TABLE ALIGN=LEFT CELLPADDING=5 BORDER=1 WIDTH=320 BGCOLOR="#99CCCC"> <TR VALIGN=MIDDLE><TD><IMG SRC="/support/gif/listen.gif" BORDER=0 VALIGN=MIDDLE> Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 19 minutes):<BR><A HREF="#" onClick="w=window.open ('/music1/19_cent/tchaikovsky_rococoA style of design, painting, and architecture dominating the 18th century, often considered the last stage of the Baroque. Developing in the Paris townhouses of the French aristocracy at the turn of the 18th century, Rococo was elegant and ornately decorative, its mood lighthearted and witty. Louis XV furniture, richly decorated with organic forms, is a typical product. Leading exponents of the Rococo sryle included the French painters Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) and Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), and the German architect Johann Balthasar Neumann (1687-1753). Rococo gave way to Neo-classicism..html', 'newWin', 'scrollbars=yes,status=no,dependent=yes,screenX=0,screenY=0,width=350,height=350');w.opener=this;w.focus();return true"><B>Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme</B></A> </TD></TR></TABLE>
OTHER WORKS BY ÉTIENNE-MAURICE FALCONET
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r34462175a0d159,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Baigneuse by FALCONET, Étienne-Maurice},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-13},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/falconet-tienne-maurice-rab9618ac7294cd/baigneuse-r34462175a0d159},
urldate = {2026-09-13},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-13. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.