Mononymous person town of Stendal, birthplace of the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, whom Stendhal admired. In the 20th century, a fourth French writer, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (author of "Gigi", 1945), used her actual surname as her mononym pen name, Colette. Some French actors and singers have used their given name or surname as a stage mononym. In the 17th and 18th centuries, most Italian castrato singers used mononyms as stage names (e.g. Caffarelli, Farinelli). The German writer, mining engineer and philosopher, Georg Friedrich Philipp Freiherr von Hardenberg (1772–1801), became famous as Novalis. The 19th-century Dutch writer Eduard Douwes Dekker (1820–87), better
Gabrielle Renard Gabrielle Renard Gabrielle Renard (August 1, 1878 – February 26, 1959) was a French woman who became an important member of the family of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, first becoming their nanny, and subsequently a frequent model for the artist. The bond she developed with the Renoirs' second son, the future filmmaker Jean Renoir, lasted throughout their lives. Upon her marriage in 1921, she became Gabrielle Renard-Slade. Born in Essoyes in the Aube of France, she was a cousin of Aline Victorine Charigot Renoir, who had married the painter, Pierre-Auguste. The village was the birthplace of Aline also. At age