Description of the attraction
The David d'Ange (Anzhersky) Gallery was opened in 1839 during the lifetime of this famous sculptor. Born in Angers in 1788, he studied painting and sculpture in France and Italy. By the age of 28, having returned from Rome to Paris, the artist acquired the fame of an unsurpassed sculptor. Traveling around Europe, the sculptor became famous thanks to the stucco busts of many celebrities of that time. He also made bas-relief medallions and cast bronze medals with portraits of celebrities of that era - for example, the virtuoso Paganini, the writer Georges Sand and the poet Beranger. The most famous medal works of d'Ange are the bronze images of the young Napoleon and Lord Byron.
David of Angersky captured Victor Hugo and Goethe, Chateaubriand and Rouge de Lille, Washington and Humboldt, sculpted statues of Prince Condé and René of Anjou, playwright Pierre Corneille and inventor of the printing press, Johann Gutenberg and many other politicians and artists. David Anzhersky owns the reliefs of the triumphal gates in Marseilles, sculptures of the pediment of the Pantheon in Paris, the frieze of the Odeon theater and other sculptural images.
The sculptor spent the last four years of his life in exile and returned to Paris only in 1856, where he died suddenly and was buried in the Pere-La-Chaise cemetery.
In his hometown, the gallery of his works for about one and a half hundred years was housed in the building of the Museum of Fine Arts. In 1984, the gallery moved to the Church of All Saints, built in the XII century and restored. In this museum you can see works of large format, which are allocated to the hall on the first floor. Among the busts and sculptures are images of Balzac, Goethe and Washington. The gallery's collection also includes sketches, small sculptural forms and a collection of medals collected by the author.
