Troubetskoy was born on Lake Maggiore, the son of a Russian prince and of an American singer. He was a perfect representative of the cosmopolitan worldly society in Europe before the First World War. He devoted his life to sculpture. As an artist Troubetskoy was essentially an autodidact, but he was much influenced by the Milanese Scapigliatura, particularly his friend the painter Daniele Ranzoni and the sculptors Giuseppe Grandi and Ernesto Bazzaro. Troubetskoy's travels exposed him to the ideas of Auguste Rodin and the Impressionists. In many ways he was the sculptural equivalent of the portrait painters Giovanni Boldini and John Singer Sargent. Among his illustrious sitters were Tolstoy, Rodin, Anatole France, and George Bernard Shaw. He was also a fine 'animalier' (animal portraitist). |
