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See also: David d'See also: Angers, 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 carver, but he had thrown aside the mallet and taken the musket, fighting against the Chouans of La See also: Vendee
.
He returned to his See also: trade at the end of the See also: civil 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 capital of eleven francs
.
After struggling against want for a year and a See also: half, he succeeded in taking the 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 Strassburg; but those he himself valued most were the statue of Barra, a drummer boy who continued to beat his drum till the moment of See also: death in the war in La Vendee, and the monument to the See also: Greek liberator Bozzaris, consisting in a young See also: female figure called " Reviving See also: Greece," of which Victor 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 pediment of the See also: Pantheon, his monument to General Gobert in Pere Lachaise and his 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 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 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)
.
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