Bather, also called Venus at The Louvre, Paris

This "beautiful, beautiful, sublime figure" captivated Diderot and his contemporaries. Instead of sculpting the idealized body of a goddess, Allegrain shows a woman in all her mortal realism. The fluidity of the contours, the feeling of fullness, the voluptuousness of her gesture, and the refinement of the hairstyle are eminently sensual. A "beautiful, beautiful, sublime figure; even the most beautiful, they say, the most beautiful figure of a woman the moderns have created," Diderot enthus