David d'Angers came up to Paris with forty-five francs his mother and sisters had scraped together, and fifty lent by his master. Prix de Rome in 1811, he delivered the pediment of the Panthéon in 1837, where the Nation holds out crowns to her great men. This cemetery owes him part of its face: dozens of medallions, and the tomb of General Foy. Two words are engraved on his own.
The story
Pierre-Jean David was born at Angers on 12 March 1788. He left for Paris with forty-five francs scraped together by his mother and sisters, and fifty lent by his master Delusse. He carved ornament on the Arc du Carrousel and then at the Louvre, won a medal in 1809, and the painter Louis David took him under his protection.
Grand Prix de Rome in 1811 with a “Death of Epaminondas”, he discovered Michelangelo and Raphael in Rome, passed through London where he worked on the Wellington monument, and came back to Paris in 1818 for the statue of the Grand Condé.
A member of the Institut in 1826, professor at the school of painting and sculpture, in 1837 he delivered the pediment of the Panthéon in Paris — his masterpiece, where the Nation hands out crowns to great men.
Père-Lachaise owes him part of its face. The tomb of General Foy, where the celebrities of the funeral procession can be picked out, is his; so is the bust of Arago in Division 4; and dozens of bronze medallions on graves across the cemetery.
Elected representative of the people for the Maine-et-Loire in 1848, he left for Greece in 1852 and came back with his health going. He died in Paris on 5 January 1856 and lies in Division 39. Angers keeps, in the abbey of Toussaint, twenty-three monumental statues, forty-four busts and about a hundred of his medallions.
The grave
The tomb was designed by the architect Charles Édouard Isabelle, and its inscription fits in two words: “DAVID d'ANGERS”. No first name, no dates, no titles — and above all no portrait. The sculptor who left Père-Lachaise the tomb of General Foy, the bust of Arago and dozens of bronze medallions on the neighbouring graves, the man whose trade was to fix faces, wanted none of his own on his stone.
On site, do not miss
Two engraved words, “DAVID d'ANGERS”, on the grave of the man who gave half the cemetery its face.
Visitors' questions
Where is David d'Angers's grave?
In Division 39, Chemin Camille-Jordan, third row — the same alley as Cambacérès, and the division of the Abbé Sicard. The tomb is by the architect Charles Édouard Isabelle and bears only two words.
CambacérèsWhich works by David d'Angers can be seen at Père-Lachaise?
The tomb of General Foy in Division 28, his largest ensemble here, where the celebrities of the funeral procession can be recognised; the bust of François Arago in Division 4; and dozens of bronze medallions on graves throughout the cemetery.
General FoyWhat did he sculpt at the Panthéon?
The pediment, delivered in 1837: the Nation hands out crowns to its great men, scholars and soldiers side by side. It is his masterpiece, and one of the most widely seen public sculptures in Paris.
Albert BartholoméIs there a portrait of him on his grave?
None, and that is the paradox of this grave: the sculptor who portrayed half the great men of his century rests beneath a stone engraved with just two words, “David d'Angers”, without dates or titles.
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