Antonin Mercié

Antonin Mercié, born in Toulouse on October 29, 1845 and died in Paris on December 13, 1916, is a French sculptor and painter. Antonin Mercié entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where his teachers were Alexandre Falguière and François Jouffroy. He won the Prix de Rome in sculpture in 1868.

His first great successes were David and Gloria Victis, presented at the Paris Salon of 1872, where they received the medal of honor. David’s bronze is one of his best-known works. The hero of the Bible is shown with Goliath’s head at his feet, like Donatello’s David, he sheaths his sword. This bronze will then be exhibited in Square Montholon in Paris. La Maison Barbedienne has produced a bronze edition in a hundred copies. Numerous copies exist, some of which have a sex cover. The large original bronze is kept in Paris at the Musée d’Orsay.

At the 1882 Salon, he repeated the patriotic success of 1874 for his bronze by Gloria Victis with the group Quand même, two of which were erected in Belfort in bronze and in the Tuileries garden in Paris in marble.
Many other statues, busts or medallions of his hand allow Mercié to win a medal of honor at the Universal Exhibition of 1878 and the grand prize at that of 1889.