Ballet Dancer

Babette Cochois

French writer and ballerina

Born 1722Died 1780France
Babette Cochois
Image: Antoine Pesne · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Babette Cochois was a French ballet dancer, born in 1722, who died in 1780.

Biography

Babette Cochois (1723-1780), also known as Babet Cochois and Barbe Cochois, was a French ballerina and writer, active in Prussia. Her parentage is unknown. She was the sister of the ballerina Marianne Cochois and the second cousin of Marie Sallé.

She was engaged at the French Royal Court Theatre of Frederick the Great in Prussia between 1743 and 1749. She was considered a leading artist, and was given the rare privilege by the king to reside in Charlottenburg Palace. In 1743, when the Berlin Opera was inaugurated, she made her debut there.

In 1749 she married the French writer Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens. She retired as a ballerina, but became active as a writer.

She has been the subject of poems and a famous painting by Antoine Pesne.

Works

Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de l'esprit et du cœur, 1744

Nouveaux mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de l'esprit et du coeur, 1745

Histoire de l'esprit et du coeur, 1755

Histoire de l'esprit humain, 1765

From the Wikipedia article “Babette Cochois”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Contemporaries

Facts from Wikidata (Q16594513), CC0.