catalog of portrait medallions (online)

David D’Angers Portrait Medallion Collection

History and Catalog

Joseph Sablé Collection John M. Kelly Library St. Michael’s College

University of Toronto

June 2015 Created by: Emily Newman

University of Toronto iSchool Masters of Information Candidate

David D’Angers Portrait Medallion Collection Catalog 2

Table of Contents The Joseph Sablé Collection 3 David D’Angers 4 The Portrait Medallion Collection 5 The Portrait Medallion Collection Catalog 6

Pierre-Simon Ballanche Honoré de Balzac Henri Beyle (Stendhal) George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron François-Auguste-René, Vicomte de Chateaubriand Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque Ferdinand-Eugène-Victor Delacroix Eugène F.M.J. Devéria Alexandré Dumas Adèle Hugo Victor Hugo Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Alphonse de Lamartine Giacomo Meyerbeer Victor Pavie Madame Récamier Gioachino Antonio Rossini Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin (George Sand) Marceline-Felicite-Josephe Desbordes-Valmore Alfred-Victor, Comte de Vigny

References 28


The Joseph Sablé Collection

The 19th century French collection – the Sablé Collection – is made up of more than one hundred periodicals published between the beginning of the century and WWI. The diversity of the collection demonstrates the extraordinary success of periodicals in France throughout the 19th century. Contents of the collection include: catholic journals, journals for children, reproductive journals, literary, artistic, and musical journals, reviews and scientific journals. The diverse collection also includes pamphlets, magazines, books and art. The collection is also known for a large compendium of work by and about Émile Zola. The collection is a renowned and internationally recognized resource and is connected to the Center for 19th Century French Studies at St. Michael’s College.

Born in Lille, France in 1919, Joseph Sablé was a Basilian priest with a passion for music and literature. Always an academic, he travelled to Canada as a visiting professor at St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto in the 1960s but soon returned to religious life in the 1970s. Throughout his life he collected works of French art and literature from all eras. He donated his huge collection of approximately twelve thousand volumes to St. Michael’s College in 1985 for the Center for Romantic Studies. The Collection would later be renamed after Sablé when it became a part of the newly created Center for 19th Century French Studies. Sablé died in 1998 just shy of his ninetieth birthday, having continued to collect right up until his death. The remainder of his collection was given to St. Michael’s College and the Joseph Sablé 19th Century French Collection now contains more than twenty thousand items.


David D’Angers

Pierre-Jean David D’Angers (1788-1856) was a Romantic French sculptor. Called the “Michelangelo of Paris” by Victor Hugo, David D’Angers was one of the most important sculptors of the 19th century. He experimented in writing as well as art, and was a well known republican and political dissident. D’Angers was a friend to many Romantic artists and intellectuals as well as a professor at L’Ecole des beaux-arts in Paris.

A NOTE ON ROMATICISM: The popular philosophy of the era, Romanticism was the study of art, music and other art forms that emphasized embracing imagination and emotion. The Romantic movement was popular from 1800 – 1850.


The Portrait Medallion Collection

When the John M. Kelly Library took on the Joseph Sable 19th Century French Collection, twenty-one reproductions of the David D’Angers medallions were included. While the original medallions are cast in bronze, our collection is made of plaster. The original group of David David D’Angers Portrait Medallions is an enormous collection comprised of more than five hundred reliefs. The genre of creating relief busts in medallion form was largely a renaissance practice that David D’Angers revitalized during the 19th century. David D’Angers created the relief busts of his contemporaries, mainly European Romantic era artists, authors and philosophers. The original collection was then mass-produced and sold to the public, blurring the line between public monuments and personal “objets d’art”. Most of the medallions show the bust in profile, much like ancient coins. The majority of the original collection is currently located at the Frick Collection in New York City.


The Portrait Medallion Collection Catalog Pierre-Simon Ballanche

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / 1830 • Inscribed: left side; vertical; P.S. BALLANCHE • Diameter: 13.4cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and Death: 1776 in Lyon, France – 1847 in

Paris, France • Profession: Religious and social philosopher • Important Work: Sentiment Considered in Its

Relationship to Literature and the Arts (1801): examines religious emotion in art.

• Claim to Fame: His rejection of 18th century rationalism led him to become an influence to

Chateaubriand and the Romantic Movement in the 19th century.


Honoré de Balzac

• Signed and Dated: lower right; DAVID / 1842 • Inscribed: left side; vertical; DE BALZAC • Diameter: 17.2cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and Death: 1779 in Tours, France – 1850 in

Paris, France • Profession: Author and novelist • Important Works: La Comédie humaine (The Human

Comedy): a group of approximately 90 novels in 24 volumes. Published in 1848 and again with more material between 1869-1876.

• Claim to Fame: He established the “traditional” novel form and is often seen as one of the best novelists in history.


Henry Beyle (pseudonym: Stendhal)

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / 1829

• Inscribed: right side; horizontal, HENRY BEYLE

• Diameter: 12.6cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and Death: 1783 in Grenoble, France –

1842 in Paris, France • Profession: Author and playwright • Important Works: The Red and the Black (1830);

The Charterhouse of Parma (1839). • Claim to Fame: Served in the military and as a

diplomat for the French Royalists. His cynicism towards Romanticism became a singular literary style, which would not be appreciated until later in the 19th century.


George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / no date • Inscribed: left side; vertical; LORD BYRON • Diameter: 13.2cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and Death: 1788 in London, England –

1824 in Greece • Profession: Romantic poet and satirist • Important Works: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812-

18); Don Juan (1819-24). • Claim to Fame: Celebrated for his

autobiographical writing style, Byron was a diplomat whose work helped Greece gain independence from the Turks. Lived a travelling life, often fleeing rumors of sexual ambiguity and promiscuity.


François-Auguste-René, Vicomte de Chateaubriand

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / 1820 • Inscribed: left side, vertical: CHATEAUBRIAND • Diameter: 12.8cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and Death: 1768 in St-Malo, France – 1848 in

Paris, France • Profession: Romantic author; French diplomat • Important Works: The Genius of Christianity (1802);

René (1805); Memoires from Beyond the Tomb (1849-50). • Claim to Fame: One of the first Romantic writers

of his generation. Initially during the French Revolution he sided with the Revolutionaries, but later followed his noble relatives into favour as a royalist diplomat.


Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / 1830 • Inscribed: right side; vertical; BENJAMIN

CONSTANT • Diameter: 14.5cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and Death: 1767 in Lausanne,

Switzerland – 1830 in Paris, France • Profession: Novelist and political writer • Important Works: Adolphe (1816); Cecile;

Intimate Journals; The Red Notebook (posthumous).

• Claim to Fame: a creator of the modern psychological novel. He was initially the Duke of Brunswick but later fought against Napoleon and became President of the Council of State. He was engaged in a long-term affair with author Germaine de Stael.


Ferdinand-Eugène-Victor Delacroix

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / 1820 • Inscribed: left side; circular: EUG. DELACROIX

/ left side; circular: PICTOR • Diameter: 10.3cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and Death: 1798 in Charenton-St-Maurice,

France – 1863 in Paris, France • Profession: Romantic painter and lithographer • Important Works: Death of Sardanapalus (1827);

Liberty Leading the People (1830); Women of Algiers in Their Apartment (1834); Palais Bourbon; Palais de Luxembourg (murals).

• Claim to Fame: Although friends with many Romantics, he not partake of the Romantic movement. His use of colour contributed to the development of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting styles.


Eugène Devéria

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / 1828 • Inscribed: left side; circular: EUGENE

F.M.J. / right side; circular: DEVERIA • Diameter: 12.4cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and death: 1805, Paris – February 3,

1865, Pau • Profession: French Romantic painter • Important works: La Naissance de Henri IV

(1827); Henry VII’s divorce, Cardinal Wolsey with Catherine of Aragon.

• Claim to fame: Devéria had a taste for historical subjects, like the British Monarchy and focused on them in his work. He, along with Eugène Delacroix and Louis Boulanger was one of the main proponents of French Romantic painting.


Alexandré Dumas (père)


• Inscribed: left side; vertical: ALEXANDRE / right side; vertical: DUMAS

• Diameter: 12.3cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and Death: 1802 in Ainse, France –

1870 in Puys, France • Profession: French Romantic author • Important Works: Count of Monte Cristo and

The Three Musketeers (1844). • Claim to Fame: Originally a lawyer, Dumas

wrote some of the most epic novels of his time. He worked continuously to support his lavish lifestyle. His son, also Alexandré, was a noted playwright and novelist.


Adèle Hugo


• Inscribed: top; horizontal; ADELE HUGO • Diameter: 17.3cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and Death: 1830 – 1915 • Profession: none. • Important Works: Diaries, published

posthumously. • Life story: daughter of French Romantic

author Victor Hugo, a troubled young Adèle lived with her parents on the Channel Islands. She briefly met and fell in love with Albert Pinson, who she followed to Halifax, Nova Scotia and then to Barbados. They never married and rarely spoke, but Adèle stalked him constantly. Eventually she returned to France and was institutionalized until her death.


Victor Hugo

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / 1828 • Inscribed: left side; vertical: VICTOR; right

side; vertical: HUGO • Diameter: 9.8cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and death: 1802 in Besancon, France –

1885 in Paris, France • Profession: French Romantic writer • Important works: Notre-Dame de Paris (1831);

Les Misérables (1862). • Claim to fame: Described as the most

powerful mind of the Romantic movement, Hugo was a figure of both fame and controversy. At one time he was both the poet laureate and a peer of France, but later he was exiled for his political beliefs and became an outlaw offering wisdom from abroad. While for a time after his death he was relatively unknown, today we see Hugo as the father of French Romantic writing.


Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / 1826 • Inscribed: left side, vertical: A. INGRES; right

side, vertical: PICTOR • Diameter: 9.2cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and death: 1780 in Montauban, France –

1867 in Paris, France • Profession: French Neoclassical painter • Important works: Jupiter and Thetis (1811);

Bonaparte, First Consul (1804); Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne (1806); Odalisque with Slave (1839); The Apotheosis of Homer (1827)

• Claim to fame: A champion of the neoclassical movement, Ingres exemplified the contemporary Romanticism in French painting. Focusing on history, Ingres attempted to follow in the footsteps of great artists such as Raphael, painting lauded but often-controversial nudes.


Aphonse de Lamartine

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / 1830 • Inscribed: left side; vertical: ALPHONSE DE

LAMARTINE • Diameter: 13.4cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and death: 1790 in Macon, France – 1869 in

Paris, France • Profession: French Romantic poet and statesman • Important works: Méditations Poétiques (1820) • Claim to fame: Lamartine’s poetry revolutionized the

craft. He became a politician devoted to improving the life of the working class, dedicating his life to political causes. Eventually, he became head of the provisional government during the Second Republic in 1848 and was elected to the General Assembly. He was later thrown out of office by the bourgeoisie and lived an impoverished life, publishing poetry to make ends meet until his death.


Giacomo Meyerbeer

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / 1842 • Inscribed: left side; vertical: GIACOMO

MEYERBEER • Diameter: 16.9cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and Death: 1791 in Tasdorf, Germany –

1864 in Paris, France • Profession: German opera composer • Important Works: Robert le Diable (1831); Les

Huguenots (1836); L’Africaine (1863). • Claim to Fame: Meyerbeer wrote in German,

Italian and French. Most recognized for his French operas, he gained great fame during his life, influencing Berlioz, Puccini and Verdi. After his death his work fell into obscurity.


Victor Pavie


• Inscribed: left side; vertical: VICTOR; right side, vertical: PAVIE

• Diameter: 10.6cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and death: 1808 in Angers, France – 1886

in France • Profession: French Romantic poet and writer • Important works: Praise of David D’Angers (1853);

Westminster and Fontevrault (1867); Goethe and David Memories of a trip to Weimar (1874).

• Claim to fame: After studying law in Paris, Pavie began to move in literary circles becoming friends with Sainte-Beave and Victor Hugo. He became a publisher and printer while writing poems, memoires and travel accounts, such as the tale of his journey with David D’Angers in Weimar where he met the writer Goethe


Madame Récamier

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID • Inscribed: right side; vertical:

MADAME RECUMIER • Diameter: 14.5cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and death: 1777, Lyon,

France – 1849, Paris, France • Profession: French Salon Hostess

and muse to Romantic contemporaries

• Claim to fame: Madame de Récamier opened her home to entertain some of the greatest minds of the Romanic movement. In her salon, artists, writers and politicians met to discuss politics and the arts. She was exiled by Napoleon and spent time with Germaine de Staël, who featured her in the novel, Corinne. After returning to Paris she became the companion of Chateaubriand. Jacques-Louis David created the famous Portrait of Mme. Récamier lounging on a sofa in her salon in 1800.


Gioachino Antonio Rossini

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / 1829 • Inscribed: left side; vertical: JOACHIM

ROSSINI / NE A PESARO 1792 • Diameter: 11.3cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and Death: 1792 in Pesaro, Italy – 1868 in

Passy, France • Profession: Opera composer • Important Works: The Touchstone (1812); Barber

of Seville (1816); Cinderella (1817); Semiramide (1823); William Tell (1829).

• Claim to Fame: The creator of “Opera Buffa” (comedic opera) he had success all over Europe. After writing the opera, William Tell, he retired to his villa, entertaining his Romantic contemporaries with lavish parties.


Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / 1828 • Inscribed: left side; vertical: SAINTE-

BEUVE • Diameter: 11.6cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and Death: 1804 in Boulogne, France

– 1869 in Paris, France • Profession: Literary historian and critic • Important Works: Historical and Critical

Description of French Poetry and Theatre in the 16th Century (1828), Portraits series (1832-46); Lundi series (1857-70).

• Claim to Fame: A teacher, senator and journalist, he promoted Romantic literature and authors. He supported public libraries and free education. He continued writing about his contemporaries until his death.


Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin (pseudonym: George Sand)

• Singed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / 1833 • Inscribed: left side; horizontal: GEORGE SAND • Diameter: 15.1cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and Death: 1804 in Paris, France –

1876 in Nohant, France • Profession: Romantic Author • Important Works: Indiana (1832); Valentine

(1832); Lélia (1833), La Petite Fadette (1949); children’s stories.

• Claim to Fame: Unhappy in marriage, George Sand left her husband for Paris where she wrote novels and for the newspaper, Le Figaro. She took lovers including Romantic contemporaries such as composer Frederic Chopin. Her later work focused on the country and charity during her “rustic period”.


Marceline-Felicite-Josephe Desbordes-Valmore

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / 1822 • Inscribed: left side; vertical: MARCELINE

VALMORE • Diameter: 14.8cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and Death: 1786 in Douai, France –

1859 in Paris, France • Profession: Romantic Poet • Important Works: The Tears (1833); A

Painter’s Studio (1833); Poor Flowers (1839); Bouquets and Prayers (1843).

• Claim to Fame: A young actress, Marceline married the actor Valmore. After being too ill to act she turned to poetry, writing on religion, death, sadness, and love for family and home. She gained her esteem from prominent contemporaries such as Baudelaire.


Alfred-Victor, Comte de Vigny

• Signed and Dated: bottom center; DAVID / 1828 • Inscribed: left side; vertical: ALFRED / right side; vertical: DE VIGNY • Diameter: 11.9cms • Material: plaster cast • Birth and Death: 1797 in Loches,

France – 1863 in Paris, France • Profession: Poet, dramatist and novelist • Important Works: Poèmes (1822); Poèmes

antiques et modernes; Cinq-Mars (1826); The Military Necessity (1853); Les Destinées (1864); Le Journal d’un pote (1867).

• Claim to Fame: Known for philosophic romanticism, Sir Walter Scott and William Shakespeare influenced Vigny. He became pessimistic when France began a second revolution in the 1830s and became a recluse.


References Center for 19th Century French Studies. “Père Sablé”. Accessed June 24, 2015: http://sites.utoronto.ca/sable/centre/historique/sable.html Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed June 2015: www.britannica.com John M. Kelly Library Rare Books Collection. “Périodiques français du 19e siècle”. Accessed June 24, 2015: http://stmikes.utoronto.ca/kelly/rarebooks/pf_19e_siecle/default.asp The Frick Collection. “Past Exhibition: David D’Angers”. Accessed June 2015: www.frick.org/exhibitions

catalog of portrait medallions (online)

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