François Arago

A very large part of David’s production consisted of medallions. Sharing the taste for galleries of great men which originated the historical museum at Versailles in the same period, he modelled the effigies of his contemporaries over a lengthy period and in order to finish them he had no hesitation in leaving his position in Paris and undertaking a tour of Europe. There, too, he was mainly concerned with the character of his models, most of whom he showed in profile, a position enabling him to reproduce physical and moral characteristics more easily.

Fran�ois Arago was a French physicist who discovered the principle of the production of magnetism by rotation of a nonmagnetic conductor. He also devised an experiment that proved the wave theory of light and engaged with others in research that led to the discovery of the laws of light polarization.