Danseuse

Even her fingertips exert themselves in total motion

toward this poised

immobile instant of her dance -

a tension arched

weightless and effortless

lifting to a crest of not yet broken music -

nor will it break

nor she stop balancing

tiptoe in time

on the illusion of a movement captured rhythmically in bronze.

Prince Paul Troubetzkoy created such monumental works as the equestrian statue of Czar Alexander II in Russia and Gen. Gray Otis in Los Angeles; numerous full-length bronze portraits of great writers such as George Bernard Shaw and Count Leo Tolstoy, who were his close friends; and vivacious likenesses of socialites, tycoons, and politicians, including young Franklin D. Roosevelt. There was another side, too; genre scenes of Indians and cowboys, informal figures of children and animals at play, dancers, athletes and artists, a kinetic world captured in clay, then cast in bronze.

Troubetzkoy was born in Italy, the middle son of a Russian, Prince Peter Petrovich Troubetzkoy, and an American, Ada Winans. Paul and his slightly older brother, Pierre - who became a painter - both showed great talent as children and took delight in painting and sculpture. Pierre married Virginia novelist Amelie Rives and Paul followed him to America, where he spent a very rewarding decade. By late 1920 Paul was back in Paris, where he worked until returning to Italy in 1932.

Ulrich Troubetzkoy is married to a relative of the sculptor.