Replicas of Michelangelo's David have been made numerous times, in plaster, imitation marble, fibreglass, snow, and other materials.[1] 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 in 1910. The original sculpture was moved indoors in 1873 to the Accademia Gallery in Florence, where it attracts many visitors. Others were made for study at art academies in the late nineteenth century and later, while the statue has also been replicated for various commercial reasons or as artistic statements in their own right. Smaller replicas are often considered kitsch.[2]
A plaster cast copy in 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.[3]
A bronze cast stands in front of the Kongelige Afstøbningssamling, the Danish Royal Cast Collection at the Langelinie Promenade in Copenhagen.
In 2007, Märklin produced a Z scale (1:220) bronze replica of the statue, 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 Germanfoundry Strassacker.
A copy of David was presented to the city of Buffalo, New York, 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.[4]
A scale replica can be found at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. It is in the school's older building which primarily functions as a museum, but has several casts for the students’ use.
There is a full scale replica of David on the campus of California State University, Fullerton that lies 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 remains of the sculpture for tactile study or, in a new student tradition, the dislocated but upturned buttocks for general good luck.[5]
Reduced-scale copies of David in Los Angeles, decorated for Christmas 2005
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 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."[9]
On February 26, 2013 a Lawrence, Kansas man with no formal training in sculpture molded a giant block of snow into a temporary inspiration of Michelangelo's David, at roughly 7/17 scale. The four hour endeavor was a response of one-upsmanship to his sister's snow version of the Star WarsYoda, dubbed "Snowda," a picture of which was uploaded to George Takei's Facebook Page and received tens of thousands of "likes."
A marble replica of David is located in the gardens of the Instituto Ricardo Brennand, Recife, Brazil. It was made by Cervietti Franco & Company, again of Pietrasanta.
In India, a replica installed at the Administrative Building of the University of Pune is a legacy of the British Raj.
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.
^see Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death Revisited, p.102, 1998, Vintage Books, ISBN 0679771867
^Daniel Yi, "House of 'David': When 17 replicas of Michelangelo's famed statue adorn the outside of a home, is it art or excess?," Los Angeles Times, Metro (Nov 17, 1997): 1.