7 - DAVID D'ANGERS (Pierre-Jean). Signed autograph letter and print with a signed autograph inscription.

DAVID D'ANGERS (Pierre-Jean). Signed autograph letter and print with a signed autograph inscription. — Signed autograph letter to Madame Delabrosse. Paris, January 19, 1849. “I know that, unlike those who ceaselessly rail against and slander my brothers, the Montagnards, you understand the self-sacrifice of their DEVOTION TO THE REPUBLIC AND TO THE SACRED INTERESTS OF HUMANITY. Allow a former soldier of the noble republican cause to ask you to kindly accept a proof of the engraving of the Pantheon’s pediment; IT IS NOT LOUIS-PHILIPPE’S FAULT IF YOU FIND THE FIGURES OF MANUEL AND LIBERTY THERE, I HAD BEEN ORDERED TO REMOVE THEM, but my firm refusal prevented the government of the time (1836) from going any further... ” (one p. in-8, double-leaf rolled). — Copperplate engraving by Jean-Marie Leroux after a drawing by Pierre-Jean David d’Angers (in-plano; rolled sheet, faint water stains, marginal tears restored on the reverse). AUTOGRAPH DEDICATION SIGNED: “Presented to Madame Delabrosse by her most devoted servant, David d’Angers, January 19, 1849.” The pediment of the Panthéon was commissioned from Pierre-Jean David d’Angers by François Guizot in 1830, on the orders of Louis-Philippe I immediately after his accession to the throne. The sculptor drew on the idea of his predecessor, Jean-Guillaume Moitte, whose bas-relief, installed during the Revolution, had subsequently been removed during the Restoration: he thus depicted the Fatherland bestowing laurel wreaths, flanked by Liberty and History, and instead of allegorical figures as before, Pierre-Jean David d’Angers depicted very real and identifiable men such as Laplace, Lavoisier, Malesherbes, Rousseau, Voltaire, but also... Bonaparte, Hoche, La Fayette, Manuel, and Mirabeau. Criticized for his choice, interrupted in his work by a decision of Minister d’Argout, then authorized to continue by Thiers in the same year, 1836, he did not see his work installed until 1837, and without ceremony.