Paolo Troubetzkoy
Russian sculptor (1866-1938)

Prince Paolo Petrovich Troubetzkoy (also known as Pavel or Paul; Russian: Павел Петрович Трубецкой, romanized: Pavel Petrovich Trubetskoy; 15 February 1866 — 12 February 1938) was an Italian sculptor of Russian origin who was described by George Bernard Shaw as "the most astonishing sculptor of modern times". By birth, he was a member of the Trubetskoy family.
Life
He was the son of Russian diplomat, Prince Peter Petrovich Troubetzkoy (1822–1892) and his second wife, lyric singer Ada Winans (1831–1917). His paternal grandmother was Princess Emilie zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (1801–1869), which makes him great-grandson of famous Marshal Prince Peter zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg-Ludwigsburg. He worked in Italy, Russia, the United States, England and France.
Troubetzkoy grew up in a family open to the influence of the Milanese Scapigliatura. Among the visitors to the family villa was the Scapigliato painter Daniele Ranzoni, whose portraits included Gigi, Piero and Paolo Troubetzkoy. He was a self-taught artist, although he learned painture from Daniele Ranzoni during his childhood and sculpture from Giuseppe Grandi. He is associated with impressionism, due to his ability to grasp sketchy movements in his bronze works. He was heavily influenced by the work of Auguste Rodin and Medardo Rosso.
“Paolo Troubetzkoy” enters the record as russian sculptor (1866-1938). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Paolo, Troubetzkoy and Russian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q583534. VIAF identifies the subject as 46796309. The Library of Congress control number is n88215772. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1866, 1938, 1822 and 1892.
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This entry incorporates text from “Paolo Troubetzkoy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.