Replicas of Michelangelo

Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

's David

David (Michelangelo)

David is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture created between 1501 and 1504, by the Italian artist Michelangelo. It is a marble statue of a standing male nude. The statue represents the Biblical hero David, a favoured subject in the art of Florence...

 have been made numerous times, in plaster

Plaster

Plaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting,...

, imitation marble

Marble

Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...

, fibreglass and other materials. 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

Piazza della Signoria

Piazza della Signoria is an L-shaped square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. It was named after the Palazzo della Signoria, also called Palazzo Vecchio....

 in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, 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 iconic image has also been replicated for various commercial reasons or as artistic statements in their own right. Smaller replicas are often considered kitsch

Kitsch

Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...

.

Study replicas

A plaster cast copy at the Cast Courts

Cast Courts (Victoria and Albert Museum)

The Cast Courts of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, comprise two large halls. Unusually for a museum, the Cast Courts house a collection not of originals, but copies. Here are to be found reproductions of some of the most famous sculptures in the world...

 at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 was intended for the education of art students, and had a detachable fig leaf

Fig leaf

A fig leaf is the covering up of an act or an object that is embarrassing or disagreeable. The term is a metaphorical reference to the Biblical Book of Genesis, in which Adam and Eve used fig leaves to cover "their nakedness" after eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and...

, used for added modesty

Modesty

Standards of modesty are aspects of the culture of a country or people, at a given point in time, and is a measure against which an individual in society may be judged....

 during visits by Queen Victoria and other important ladies, when it was hung on the figure using two strategically placed hooks. Also intended for students were the cast in the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...

 and in the open air Middelheim Sculpture Museum in Antwerp, Belgium. A replica installed at the Administrative Building of the University of Pune

University of Pune

The University of Pune , is a university located in northwestern Pune, India. It was founded in 1949. Spread over a campus, the university is home to 46 academic departments...

 on Aundh Road is part of the legacy of the British Raj

British Raj

British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...

. Another replica can be found in front of the Kongelige Afstøbningssamling, the Danish Royal Cast Collection at the Langelinie

Langelinie

Langelinie is a pier, promenade and park in central Copenhagen, Denmark, and home of the statue of The Little Mermaid. The area has for centuries been a popular destination for excursions and strolls in Copenhagen...

 Promenade in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

.

Gifts

In 1995, a replica

Replica

A replica is a copy closely resembling the original concerning its shape and appearance. An inverted replica complements the original by filling its gaps. It can be a copy used for historical purposes, such as being placed in a museum. Sometimes the original never existed. For example, Difference...

 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

Buffalo, New York

Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 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.

Other examples

A replica of David can also be found at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park

Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale

Forest Lawn Memorial Park is a privately owned cemetery in Glendale, California. It is the original location of Forest Lawn, a chain of cemeteries in Southern California. The land was formerly part of Providencia Ranch.-History:...

 in Glendale, CA,, at the "Appian Way Shops" at Caesars Palace

Caesars Palace

Caesars Palace is a luxury hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, an unincorporated township in Clark County, Nevada, United States in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. Caesars Palace is owned and operated by Caesars Entertainment Corp....

 in Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...

. A bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...

 replica also stands in the courtyard of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art

John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art is the state art museum of Florida, located in Sarasota, Florida. It was established in 1927 as the legacy of Mable and John Ringling for the people of Florida...

 in Sarasota, Florida

Sarasota, Florida

Sarasota is a city located in Sarasota County on the southwestern coast of the U.S. state of Florida. It is south of the Tampa Bay Area and north of Fort Myers...

 and in Fawick Park in Sioux Falls, South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

.

In 1965, David Sollazzini and Sons of Florence, Italy created a Carrara marble replica for the Palace of Living Art at the Movieland Wax Museum

Movieland Wax Museum

Movieland Wax Museum, with over 300 wax figures in 150 sets, was the largest wax museum in the United States. Located in Buena Park, California, it was one of the most popular wax museums in United States for decades...

 in Buena Park, California

Buena Park, California

Buena Park is a city in northwestern Orange County, California. As of Census 2010 the population was 80,530. The city is adjacent to the city of Anaheim and is 12 miles northwest of downtown Santa Ana. The Current OMB metropolitan designation for Buena Park and the Orange County Area is "Santa...

. 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!

Ripley's Believe It or Not!

Ripley's Believe It or Not! is a franchise, founded by Robert Ripley, which deals in bizarre events and items so strange and unusual that readers might question the claims...

 Museum in St. Augustine, Florida

St. Augustine, Florida

St. Augustine is a city in the northeast section of Florida and the county seat of St. Johns County, Florida, United States. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorer and admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, it is the oldest continuously occupied European-established city and port in the continental United...

.

A large bronze copy of David can be found at the Ringling Museum of Art.

Appropriations

There is a full scale replica of David on the campus of California State University, Fullerton

California State University, Fullerton

California State University, Fullerton is a public university located in Fullerton, California. It is the largest institution in the CSU System by enrollment, it offers long-distance education and adult-degree programs...

 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 remains of the sculpture for tactile study or, in a new student tradition, the dislocated but upturned buttocks for general good luck.

A scale replica can also be found at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. The replica is in the school's older building which primarily functions as a museum, but has several casts for the students to study. The replica is not part of the museum and may not be available to the public.

Also in southern California

Southern California

Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...

, a resident of the Hancock Park

Hancock Park, Los Angeles, California

Hancock Park is a historic and affluent urban neighborhood in Los Angeles, California roughly bounded by Van Ness Avenue to the East, Melrose Avenue to the North, La Brea Avenue to the West, and Wilshire Boulevard to the South.-History:...

 neighbourhood in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 has decorated his house and grounds with twenty-three reduced scale replicas of the statue.

In 2007, Märklin

Märklin

Gebr. Märklin & Cie. GmbH or Märklin is a German toy company. The company was founded in 1859 and is based at Göppingen in Baden-Wurttemberg. Although it originally specialised in doll house accessories, today it is best known for model railways and technical toys...

 produced a Z scale

Z scale

Z scale is one of the smallest commercially available model railway scales with a track gauge of . Z scale trains operate on 0-10 volts direct current and offer the same operating characteristics as all other two-rail, direct-current, analog model railways...

 (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

Göppingen

Göppingen is a town in southern Germany, part of the Stuttgart Region of Baden-Württemberg. It is the capital of the district Göppingen. It is situated at the bottom of the Hohenstaufen mountain, in the valley of the river Fils....

 to celebrate the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 foundry

Foundry

A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mold, and removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron...

 Strassacker.

Stanford miniature replica

In 2004, as part of Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

'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."