A famous deaf French sculptor named Paul-François Choppin made this plaster cast of Abbé Charles-Michel de L’Épée. This plaster cast was part of a collection donated to the Deaf Museum & Archive by St. Saviour’s Church for the Deaf in Acton, West London.
Who was Abbé de L’Épée?
He was born in 1712 in the Palace of Versailles and became known as the “Father of the Deaf”. When visiting slums in Paris he had a chance encounter with two young deaf sisters who communicated using sign language. L’Épée then decided to dedicate himself to the education and salvation of the deaf and in 1760 he was the founder of the first public school for the deaf. L’Épée came to believe that deaf people were capable of language and concluded that they should be able to receive the sacrament (Catholic Churches) and thus avoid going to Hell. He began to develop a system of instruction of the French language and religion. He died at the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. His tomb is in the Church of Saint Roch in Paris.
Who was Paul-François Choppin?
He was born as the son of a barrister on 26th February 1856 at Auteuil and he lost his hearing at the age of two by a fall through the carelessness of his nurse who dropped him. He studied at the National Institution for Deaf Mutes in Paris, which was founded by L’Épée in 1760, and then he studied at the National School of Decorative Arts. He was a student of François Jouffroy and Alexandre Falguiere and after debuting at the Salon de Paris, France, exhibited some busts and statues at the Salon, the official art exhibition of the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. He exhibited at the Salon until 1923.
Nearly all of his works were in plaster including Periere teaching a deaf boy (c1906) which is lost. Some of his works were in bronze. His statue of the founder of the Anthropological Society, Paul Broca, has disappeared and is believed to have been melted by the Nazis during WWII to help their war efforts. A deaf American, Douglas Tilden went to Paris in 1888 and studied under Choppin for five years before returning home. In 1904 Choppin married Marie Célina Reuché, a miniaturist painter.
He died in 1937 at the age of 81.