The collection of French sculpture was put together over two centuries and is remarkable for its diversity and richness, covering works by Jean-Antoine Houdon, Eugene Falconet, Auguste Rodin and Henri Matisse.
The Academic style of the late 17th and early 18th centuries is represented by bronze models of celebrated monumental works, the most important is a model of the famous equestrian statue of Louis XIV by Francois Girardon; the statue was destroyed during the French Revolution (1789-1793), and is now known only through surviving models.
A. Coysevox, one of the leading sculptors, whose works decorated Versailles and Paris, is represented in the Hermitage by a splendid poratrait of his contemporary, P. Mignard.
Eugene Falconet, author of St Petersburg's magnificent Bronze Horseman, the monument to Peter the Great, is represented by early sculptures in Rococo style, such as Threatening Cupid (1757) and Bather, and later figures such as the large marble Winter (1771). Marie-Anne Collot was Falconet's pupil and assistant on the creation of the Bronze Horseman; she produced numerous portrait busts, the best being a portrait of her teacher (1773).
The foremost French sculptor of the 18th century, Jean-Antoine Houdon, was much admired by Catherine the Great, who commissioned from him portraits of the great French philosopher Voltaire, of which the marble statue of Voltaire seated (1781) is rightly regarded as a masterpiece. There are also more modest portrait busts of Count I.P. Saltykov (1782), scientist and naturalist, and a little girl, Lisette. Houdon's contemporary Claude Michel, known as Clodion, produced a number of fine reliefs, among them Bacchanalia and The Death of St Cecilia.
Sculpture of the first half of the 19th century was diverse, from the animalist sculptures of the Romantic A.Barye - Horse, Panther and Antelope, Lion and Snake - to the Realist works of Jules Dalou, such as his early terracotta Peasant Woman with her Child (1873) and the marble Girl in a Shawl (1880-1890).
The Hermitage is very proud of its works by Auguste Rodin: one of plaster studies for the fine The Age of Bronze (1877), a plaster portrait of Japanese actress Hanako (1908), and marble groups in an ‘impressionistic' manner: Eternal Spring (after 1884), Romeo and Juliet (1905), The Poet and the Muse (c.1905).
Aristide Maillol is represented by small bronzes from his early period (Bather, about 1900, Seated Girl, about 1905), his contemporary Bourdelle by a study for an allegorical figure, Eloquence (1917), and one of the artist's best portraits, Portrait of the Artist Ingres.
The Hermitage posesses seven works by Henri Matisse, who made around seventy sculptures overall, this small collection spanning Matisse's whole career, from the early Standing Nude to mature works such as Portrait of Henriette and Venus and his very last nude, Katya.
