Emeric-David, Toussaint-Bernard

EMERIC - DAVID, TOUSSAINT - BERNARD (1755-1839), French archaeologist and writer on art, was born at Aix, in Provence, on the 2oth of August 1755. He was destined for the legal profession, and having gone in 1775 to Paris to complete his legal education, he acquired there a taste for art which influenced his whole future career, and he went to Italy, where he continued his art studies. He soon returned, however, to his native village, and followed for some time the profession of an advocate; but in 1787 he succeeded his uncle Antoine David as printer to the parlement. He was elected mayor of Aix in 1791; and although he speedily resigned his office, he was in 1793 threatened with arrest, and had for some time to adopt a vagrant life. When danger was past he returned to Aix, sold his printing business, and engaged in general commercial .pursuits; but he was not long in renouncing these also, in order to devote himself exclusively to literature and art. From 1809 to 1814, under the Empire, he represented his department in the Lower. House (Corps legislatif); in 1814 he voted for the downfall of Napoleon; in 1815 he retired into private life, and in 1816 he was elected a member of the Institute.

He died in Paris on the 2nd of April 1839. Emeric-David was placed in 1825 on the commission appointed to continue L'Histoire lilteraire de la France. His principal works are Recherches sur I'art staluaire, considere chez les anciens et les.modernes (Paris, 1805), a work which obtained the prize of the Institute; Suite d' etudes calqutes et dessinees d'apres cinq tableaux de Raphael (Paris, 1818-1821), in 6 vols. fol.; Jupiter, ou recherches sur ce dieu, sur son culte, &c. (Paris, 1833), 2 vols. 8vo, illustrated; and Vulcain (Paris, 1837).