Antonin Mercié

Marius Jean Antonin Mercié (October 30, 1845 in Toulouse – December 12, 1916 in Paris) was a French sculptor, medallist and painter.

Biography

Mercié entered the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and studied under Alexandre Falguière and François Jouffroy, and in 1868 gained the Grand Prix de Rome at age 23. His first great popular successes were the David and Gloria Victis. The latter bronze was shown and received the Medal of Honour of the Paris Salon and was subsequently placed in the Square Montholon.

The bronze David was one of his most popular works. The Biblical hero is depicted naked with the head of Goliath at his feet like Donatello's David, but with a turbanned head and sheathing his long sword. Numerous reproductions exist, most of which incorporate a loincloth that covers David's genitalia but not his buttocks. The lifesize original is in the Musée d'Orsay.

Mercié was appointed Professor of Drawing and Sculpture at the École des Beaux-Arts, and was elected a member of the Académie française in 1891, after being awarded the biennial prize of the Institute of 800 in 1887. He died in Paris on December 12, 1916.

Works

The Genius of the Arts (1877), a relief, is in the Tuileries, in substitution for Antoine-Louis Barye's Napoleon III. A similar work for the tomb of Jules Michelet (1879; designed with architect Jean-Louis Pascal) is in Père Lachaise Cemetery, and in the same year Mercié produced the statue of Arago with accompanying reliefs, now erected at Perpignan. and the 1911 Francis Scott Key Monument in Baltimore, Maryland.

Gallery