Goethe and the French sculptor Pierre Jean David d'Angers
David d'Angers (1788–1856) visited Weimar from August 21st to September 9th in 1829 to ask Goethe (1749–1832) if he could make a bust of him. Their talks about literature and art and their development in France convinced Goethe. The Polish Romantics Antoni Odyniec and Adam Mickiewicz also belonged to this international circle. In several sessions, Goethe sat as a model for the sculptor. Goethe wrote to Adele Schopenhauer on September 5th:
“I see an enormous mass of clay brought together and piled up and, to my no small astonishment, my portrait rising up in colossal proportions. Fortunately, he is gradually succeeding in giving the work a natural appearance.”
The marble bust was officially unveiled in 1831 on Goethe's 82nd birthday with a choir in the Grand Ducal Library – Goethe himself was not present. The chief librarian, Friedrich Riemer, gave the speech and concluded:
“Let us now turn to the work of art itself, which, with its surprising novelty and remarkable grandeur [...], is unlikely to find anything similar.”
In 2015, a collection of 20 artworks from the American literary scientist and Goethe researcher Peter Boerner (1926–2015) was brought into our Art Collections, including a copy of David d'Angers' bust of Goethe [1]. This was a gesture of friendship toward the Freies Deutsches Hochstift and its earlier director, Ernst Beutler (1885–1960).
The exhibition is in honor of Peter Boerner on his 100th birthday.
