David d'Angers

David d'Angers, 1788-1856 was a French sculptor. He was born at Angers. His father was a sculptor or a mason, but had gone into the army as a musketeer, fighting against the Chouans of La Vendée. He returned to his trade at the end of the civil war to find his customers gone, so that young David was born into poverty. His father wished for him to have a better career, and in his eighteenth year he left for Paris to study art, with only eleven francs. After struggling for survival for a year and a half, he succeeded in taking the prize at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. An annuity of 600 francs was granted to him by the municipality of his native town in 1809, and in 1811 David's Epaminondas gained the prix de Rome. He spent five years in Rome, during which his enthusiasm for the works of Antonio Canova were often excessive.

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