François René Auguste Vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768–1848), who visited Philadelphia in the 1790s, was both an author and a diplomat. His passionate, often melancholy writings made him a hero for artists in the early 1800s. David d’Angers was a particular admirer of Chateaubriand’s early work Atala (1801), recalling that during his student days, its pages "had the power to make all the fibers of my soul vibrate." David sculpted this medal as part of his "Gallerie des Contemporains," a project begun in 1827 to immortalize in bronze the great figures of his age. He worked on this project until his death, producing over five hundred medals, which together present a dynamic cross-section of intellectual life in Paris during the first half of the 1800s.