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DAVID, PIERRE JEAN (1789–1856)

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Originally appearing in Volume V07, Page 862 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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DAVID, See also:PIERRE See also:JEAN (1789–1856) , usually called David d'See also:Angers, See also:French sculptor, was See also:born at Angers on the 12th of See also:March 1789. His See also:father was a sculptor, or rather a See also:carver, but he had thrown aside the See also:mallet and taken the See also:musket, fighting against the See also:Chouans of La See also:Vendee. He returned to his See also:trade at the end of the See also:civil See also:war, to find his customers gone, so that See also:young David was born into poverty. As the boy See also:grew up his father wished to force him into some more lucrative and certain way of See also:life. At last he succeeded in surmounting the opposition to his becoming a sculptor, and in his eighteenth See also:year See also:left for See also:Paris to study the See also:art upon a See also:capital of eleven francs. After struggling against want for a year and a See also:half, he succeeded in taking the See also:prize at the Ecole See also:des See also:Beaux-Arts. An See also:annuity of 600 francs (£24) was granted by the See also:municipality of his native See also:town in 1809, and in 1811 David's "See also:Epaminondas" gained the prix de See also:Rome. He spent five years in Rome, during which his See also:enthusiasm for the See also:works of See also:Canova was often excessive. Returning from Rome about the See also:time of the restoration of the Bourbons, he would not remain in the neighbourhood of the Tuileries, which swarmed with See also:foreign conquerors and returned royalists, and accordingly went to See also:London. Here See also:Flaxman and others visited upon him the sins of David the painter, to whom he was erroneously supposed to be related. With See also:great difficulty he made his way to Paris again, where a comparatively prosperous career opened upon him. His medallions and busts were in much See also:request, and orders for monumental works also came to him.

One of the best of these was that of See also:

Gutenberg at See also:Strassburg; but those he himself valued most were the statue of See also:Barra, a drummer boy who continued to See also:beat his See also:drum till the moment of See also:death in the war in La Vendee, and the See also:monument to the See also:Greek liberator Bozzaris, consisting in a young See also:female figure called " Reviving See also:Greece," of which See also:Victor See also:Hugo said: " It is difficult to see anything more beautiful in the See also:world; this statue joins the grandeur of See also:Pheidias to the expressive manner of See also:Puget." David's busts and medallions were very numerous, and among his sitters may be found not only the illustrious men and See also:women of See also:France, but many others both of See also:England and Germany—countries which he visited professionally in 1827 and 1829. Hismedallions, it is affirmed, number 500. He died on the 4th of See also:January 1856. David's fame rests firmly on his See also:pediment of the See also:Pantheon, his monument to See also:General Gobert in Pere Lachaise and his See also:marble " See also:Philopoemen " in•the Louvre. In the Musee David at Angers is an almost See also:complete collection of his works either in the See also:form of copies or in the See also:original moulds. As an example of his benevolence of See also:character may be mentioned his rushing off to the sick-See also:bed of Rouget de See also:Lisle, the author of the " Marseillaise Hymn," modelling and 'See also:carving him in marble without delay, making a lottery of the See also:work, and sending to the poet in the extremity of need the seventy-two pounds which resulted from the See also:sale. . See H. Jouin, David d'Angers et ses relations litteraires (189o); Lettres de P. J. David d'Angers a See also:Louis See also:Dupre (Paris, 1891); Collection de portraits des contemporains d'apres See also:les medaillons de P. J. David (Paris, 1838).

End of Article: DAVID, PIERRE JEAN (1789–1856)

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