CAST BY BARBEDIENNE FROM THE MODEL BY ANTONIN MERCIE, LATE 19TH CENTURY

Mercie executed his composition of David with the head of Goliath in plaster at the Villa Medici in Rome in 1869-1870. It earned the artist a first class medal as well as the rank of Chevalier de legion d'honneur at the Paris Salon of 1872. Life size versions of Mercie's David are in the permanent collection of the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, Musée Toulouse and at the University of Copenhagen (illustrated in P. Kjellberg, Les bronzes du XIXe siècle, Paris, 1989, p. 490). Barbedienne edited this model in six sizes.