Thérèse PELTIER (1873-1926) L'Amour maternel. Large group in patinated plaster. Signed on the terrace lower right. Circa 1900. H:. 91 cm ; W:. 72 cm Chips. Note: Born on 26 September 1873 to an old Orléans family, Marie Thérèse Juliette Cochet was a French aviatrix and sculptor. Thanks to her friendship with Leon Delagrange, she developed a passion for aviation. She married Alfred Peltier, a Navy doctor, in Orléans on 18 December 1893. In 1908, she became the first woman to fly in an aeroplane, and shortly afterwards the first woman pilot. When her friend Delagrange died in an aeroplane accident in 1910, she left aviation to pursue other passions, showing a rare aptitude for music, drawing and sculpture from an early age. She died in Paris on 18 February 1926. This is what we read about her work in the magazine L'Aerophile revue technique et pratique dated 15 August 1908: "Women sculptors are becoming more and more numerous in our time. We might be surprised to see them shine in this severe and virile art, if we did not at the same time see in them an evolution towards energy, determined by our new tastes for outdoor life and sports. Feminine grace loses nothing in the process, and the works of Madame Thérèse Peltier are a faithful reflection of the new temperament of our female companions. They combine vigour, elegance and harmony, and have earned her a distinguished place among contemporary statuaries. Since her first submission in 1900 to the Salon des Artistes Français, where two years later she received an honourable mention, the artist has demonstrated the maturity of a beautiful talent in full possession of itself through figures and busts that we are delighted to see in our annual exhibitions. Her submission to the last exhibition of women painters and sculptors won her the grand prize, in other words the most enviable recognition she could have wished for, that of her peers.