French artist Marie-Anne Collot (1748-1821) is arguably one of the least known portrait sculptors in the history of Western art, yet her achievements rival the most seminal figures of the genre. Working in a “masculine” art form, Collot is unique as a female sculptor of the eighteenth century. Starting from humble beginnings as an artist’s model in Paris, she became one of the favoured sculptors in the court of Catherine the Great. Acting on a commission from the Russian Empress, she travelled to St. Petersburg in 1766 as assistant to Étienne-Maurice Falconet to design and construct the equestrian monument to Peter the Great, which has dominated Senate Square for more than 200 years. In Russia, she quickly established an impressive clientele, creating marble portrait busts of St. Petersburg’s nobility and French intellectual elites.[1] The Tsarina eventually demanded that the talented young Collot, rather than Falconet, sculpt the head for the legendary Emperor.[2] During her dozen years of work on the commemorative statue, (1766-1778), Collot also became the first Western woman to be inducted into Russia’s Imperial Academy of Arts (1767), and the first artist to sculpt the bust of Catherine the Great from life (1768). Yet, Marie-Anne Collot is not the subject of any comprehensive book publication; she is not featured in accounts of great women artists; and she is not listed among the European masters of equestrian statuary. There are only a few Western art historical articles that document her art, mostly in French. As with a sleight of hand, Marie-Anne Collot has remained invisible behind the staging of the famous Bronze Horseman, so named by Aleksander Pushkin in his 1833 poem, which stands in tandem with the sculpture as epic works of art. My reearch seeks to discover and reveal the circumstances and contributions of Marie-Anne Collot under the patronage of Catherine II in the creation, receptions, and interpretations of the Bronze Horseman.