Monsieur et Madame Abel de Pujol, Pierre-Jean David d'Angers

Showing primarily artists and authors, the portraits are part of a series of over five hundred likenesses of great men and women whom David d'Angers portrayed in bronze medallions; such portraits could be cast in multiples, thereby spreading the fame of these benefactors of mankind throughout the world. David's medallions were mainly sculpted from life, although a few are posthumous portraits. A patriot and fervent republican, David was primarily interested in French national history; however, revering men everywhere who furthered the progress of humanity, he traveled abroad to make busts and medallions of figures such as Goethe, whose portrait is included in the museum's selection. Women were not excluded from the project, and figures like Mme. Abel de Pujol, seen in a double profile portrait with her artist husband, and the poets George Sand and Delphine Gay, were also immortalized. The painters Ingres and Delacroix represent two poles of contemporary visual arts, while the Romantic titans Hugo, Balzac, Dumas pere, and the violin virtuoso Paganini evoke the battle to reform the arts to mirror the modern age.