David with the Head of Goliath

Eugène Delaplanche

1872

Bronze

35 1/2 inches (90 cm)

Beattie says "Behind the figures graceful naturalism lie three chief sources; Donatello's bronze David in the Bargello, Florence, Cellini's Perseus in the Loggia dei Lanzi and the ignudi and Sibyls of the Sistine Chapel. Reluctant, perhaps, to admit the extent of his debt to Mercie, Gilbert maintained that he was too poor to visit exhibitions when he was in Paris, but it is impossible to believe that he was not thoroughly familiar with the David when, late in 1878, he went to Rome and from there, about 1880-81, to Florence, to discover for himself the implications of those very sources" (p. 138)

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