David d'Angers portraited around 500 personalities from different nations, including artists, writers, musicians, historians, politicians, and natural scientists.

The portrait medallions are carved in bas-relief, each inscribed with a name and signed and dated by him, which makes them clearly identifiable. The sizes and styles of representation differ, but David d'Angers saw them al as a kind of corrective to actual reality: he said that in portraying virtuous people, he had created a more sublime world. Looking at them filled him with compassion and gave him comfort from the disappointments of the real world, which was good but also full of selfishness.

Many women are portrayed from David d‘Angers, such as the salonnière Juliette Récamier (1777–1849) and the socio-critical author George Sand (1804–1876). David d'Angers also created in 1853 a medallion for the American author Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896). Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin had been published just one year before. In the novel, she spoke out against slavery and demonstrated the brutality towards of the African Americans.

He also created a marble medallion of his wife, Émilie David d'Angers [10]. In this way, David d‘Angers included her in the galerie Aux grands hommes and built a monument to her.