Author: Pierre-Jean David d’Angers (1788, Angers – 1856, Paris)
Bronze, contemporary cast after the 1835 version
Signed with dedication on the back:
A SON AMI | . ADAM MICKIEWICZ .| P. J. DAVID D’ANGERS | 1835
property of the Dom Pracy Twórczej in Radziejowice, inv. no. 517/OT-14/2018
purchased in the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsk (2018)
Presented in Radziejowice, idealized image of Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855) – the greatest Polish Romantic poet, considered the first of the “Three Bards”, spiritual leaders of a nation deprived of its political freedom – is a contemporary cast based on a very well-known bust, which exists in many copies and has been reproduced in various materials with different dates, signed by David d’Angers and made of white marble. The poet and the sculptor met in Weimar in 1829 during a visit to the eighty-year-old Goethe. It was then when David portrayed the Polish poet in a profile medallion and in a marble bust.
The sculpture is presented as a truncated bust, a format commonly used across periods, with the head shown frontally (en face), set on a short neck, and with a defined fragment of the torso including the clavicles. It depicts a refined head with a high, domed forehead, crowned with a meticulously chiselled, dense head of hair, carefully arranged. The spiritualized, thin face framed by the trimmed beard is marked by precisely chiselled cheekbones, open wide eyes, a prominent nose, small lips tightened into a grimace, and a slightly receding chin. Smooth and soft modelling is enlivened by furrows on the forehead and around the nose.
Additionally, it is worth mentioning the profile medallion depicting Mickiewicz, executed in Weimar, in turn served as the basis for an engraving by David’s Polish pupil, Antoni Oleszczyński, which adorned the first edition of Pan Tadeusz (1834) and the second edition of Dziady, Part III (1833).
Text: Elżbieta Charazińska
Editing: Beata Fiugajska
Photo: Piotr Ligier