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Pierre-Jean David d’Angers

Born: Angers, 12 March 1788
Died: Paris, 6 January 1856
Nationality: French
Background: 

son of decorative woodcarver Jean-Louis David

Studies: 

with Philippe-Laurent Roland (1809-11); French Academy in Rome (1811-15)

Career: 

1807 – moves to Paris; works as a decorative sculptor on Arc du Carrousel

1810 – Prix de Rome second prize with Orthyades Dying (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Angers); meets Jacques-Louis David

1811 – wins Prix de Rome with relief Death of Epaminondas (Ecoles des Beaux-Arts, Paris)

1820s –commissions from Bourbon monarchy for decorations for Cour Carrée (1824, Louvre) and Arc du Carrousel (1827)

1826 – professor at Ecole des Beaux-Arts

1828 – begins series of 500 medallions featuring prominent contemporary men and women

1839 – Musée des Beaux-Arts in Angers begins collecting David’s work

1842 – stops teaching due to poor health

1848 – appointed mayor of 11th arrondissement (Paris); elected to Constituent Assembly as deputy for Anjou during the Second Republic

1851 – Bonapartist coup d’état; David arrested and exiled

1852 – returns to France 

Travels

Rome (1811-15); London (1816); England and Germany (1828); Belgium and  Greece (1851-52)

Commissions from: 

government under Bourbons and July Monarchy; cities of Strasbourg, Le Havre, Rouen, Aurillac, Aix-en-Provence

Important Artworks: 

Thomas Jefferson, 1832-34, bronze (US Capitol, Washington, DC)

Johann Gutenberg, 1839-40, bronze (Strasbourg)

General Gobert tomb, 1847 (Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris)