ATTIRET, Claude-François - b. 1728 Dôle, Jura, d. 1804 Dôle

French sculptor. He was the son of a joiner, who sent him to Paris to train with Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. In 1757 Attiret was in Rome, where he received a prize from the Accademia di S Luca; returning to Paris, he was accepted as a member of the Académie de St Luc in 1760, and was a professor there.

He exhibited several times at the Salon of the Académie de St Luc: among the works that he showed was Roman Charity (terracotta, 1726; Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts); Hannibal Preparing to Take Poison (terracotta, 1764); and the Chercheuse d’esprit (terracotta, 1774; Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts; marble version, Paris, private collection). This idealized portrait bust of a young woman, graceful in concept and mischievous in expression, is his best-known work.

La Chercheuse d'esprit

Attiret was born and died at D�le. Some of his religious work is in Saint-Benigne at Dijon, but he is remembered by the bust of La Chercheuse d’esprit, of which the marble was exhibited under this title at the St Luke exhibition in 1774. The title comes from a comic opera by Favart, and it has even been suggested that the Chercheuse is Madame Favart, though that is most unlikely. There is something slightly idealized in the bust, which indeed seems hardly to have the air of a portrait. The bust has a refinement and delicacy of handling, enhanced by the freshness of the terracotta medium.