Emerson Bowyer

Lauded by Victor Hugo as the Michelangelo of Paris, French sculptor Pierre-Jean David d’Angers (1788–1856) produced many of the most iconic portraits and ambitious public monuments of the Romantic era. An experimental writer, outspoken Republican, and teacher to some of the greatest sculptors of the nineteenth century, David d’Angers cultivated friendships with an array of contemporary artists, writers, scientists, and politicians — from Honoré de Balzac and Niccolò Paganini to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Eugène Delacroix. This exhibition included forty-eight works by David on paper and in wax, terracotta, marble, bronze, and plaster, as well as rare nineteenth-century reproductions of his work in photographs and engravings.