David (Michelangelo)
David is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture created in marble between 1501 and 1504 by the Italian artist Michelangelo. "David" is a marble statue of a standing male nude. The statue represents the Biblical hero David, a favoured subject in the art of Florence.
Léon Davent
An etching of "Michelangelo at the Age of Twenty-Three" (see gallery) is "somewhat, but not altogether, surprising" as a subject in France some forty years after 1498, when Michelangelo was that age. It is identified by the inscription beneath, but is not signed by "L.D.", unlike most of Davent's prints. It is certainly not "an actual likeness, since the figure is not in the least individualized". Henri Zerner suggests "most tentatively" that 1498 was the date the sculptor signed the contract for his "Pietà", now in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City with the French ambassador in Rome, Cardinal Jean de Bilhères, who commissioned the work. A French audience might therefore regard this point in his life as especially significant.