Replicas of Michelangelo's David

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Replicas of Michelangelo's David have been endlessly reproduced, in plaster, imitation marble, fibreglass and other materials, and lends an atmosphere of culture even in some unlikely settings. By the twentieth century, the statue had become iconic shorthand for 'culture'. There are many full-sized replicas of the statue around the world, perhaps the most prominent being the one in the original's position in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Italy, placed there when the original was moved indoors in 1910. Others were made for study at art academies in the late nineteenth century and later, while the iconic image has also been replicated for various commercial reasons or as artistic statements in their own right. Smaller replicas are often considered kitsch.^[1]

Contents 1 Study replicas 2 Gifts 3 Other examples 3.1 Appropriations 4 Stanford miniature replica 5 References

[edit] Study replicas

A plaster cast copy at the Cast Courts at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London was intended for the education of art students, and had a detachable fig leaf, used for added modesty during visits by Queen Victoria and other important ladies, when it was hung on the figure using two strategically placed hooks.^[2] Also intended for students were the cast in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and in the open air Middelheim Sculpture Museum in Antwerp, Belgium. A replica installed at the Administrative Building of the University of Pune on Aundh Road is part of the legacy of the British Raj.

[edit] Gifts

In 1995, a replica of David was offered as a gift by the municipality of Florence to the municipality of Jerusalem to mark the 3,000th anniversary of David's conquest of the city. The proposed gift evoked a storm in Jerusalem, where religious factions urged the gift be declined, because the naked figure was considered pornographic. Finally, a compromise was reached and another, fully-clad replica of a different statue was donated instead.

A copy of David was presented to the city of Buffalo, United States and the Buffalo Historical Society by Andrew Langdon, a businessman and scholar. Langdon had seen the statue on exhibit at the Paris Exposition of 1900; negotiating with the Neapolitan firm of bronze founders who had cast it (Angelus and Sons), he bought it and exacted an agreement that they would not send another to the United States. The statue now stands in Delaware Park.^[3]

[edit] Other examples

A replica of David can also be found at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale,^[4], at the "Appian Way Shops" at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada.^[5] A bronze replica also stands in the courtyard of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida and in Fawick Park in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

In 1965, David Sollazzini and Sons of Florence, Italy created a Carrara mable replica for the Palace of Living Art at the Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park, California. The Carrara marble used for this replica was taken from Michelangelo's own quarry near Pietrasanta, Italy. This replica was later sold to Ripley Entertainment for the Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum in St. Augustine, Florida.

[edit] Appropriations

There is a full scale replica of David on the campus of California State University, Fullerton that lays broken in pieces on the ground. It was brought to campus by a professor in 1988 after it was damaged in the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake. Visitors often touch the sculptural remains, whether for tactile study or, in a new student tradition, David's dislocated but upturned buttocks for general good luck.^[6]

Also in southern California, a resident of the Hancock Park neighbourhood in Los Angeles has decorated his house and grounds with twenty-three reduced scale replicas of the statue.^[7]

In 2007, Märklin produced a Z scale (1:220) bronze replica of the Statue of David, which stood approximately 1.6 inches (41 mm) tall. The statue accompanied the "museumswagen" for that year, a collector car offered in the Märklin museum in Göppingen to celebrate the German foundry Strassacker.

[edit] Stanford miniature replica

In 2004, as part of Stanford University's "Digital Michelangelo Project", a highly accurate 15 inch replica was made by Gentle Giant Studios mechanically reproducing their digital scans of the original. Ignoring the advice of an Italian sculptor to soften the features of a reduced-scale copy "otherwise, it appears precious and cartoony", the results were felt to be satisfactory, if "angular when viewed in person, especially around his face."^[8]

[edit] References