Antonin Mercié (French, 1795-1875)

Gloria Victis

Details

Antonin Mercié (French, 1795-1875)
Gloria Victis
signed 'A. MERCIE' inscribed 'F. BARBEDIENNE, Fondeur. Paris', numbered 210, stamped 'reduction mécanique L. COLLAS BREVETÉ' (on the base)
bronze with brown patina and gilt
height: 41½ in. (105.4 cm.) height of green marble pedestal: 40½ in. (102.9 cm.)

Literature

Catalogue des Bronze D'Art F. Barbedienne, Chicago, 1886, p. 48 (illustrated).
J. Cooper, Nineteenth-Century Romantic Bronzes, Boston, 1975, p. 38 (another cast illustrated).
H. Berman, Bronzes, Sculptors & Founders 1800-1930, Chicago, 1977, vol. 3, p. 615 (another cast illustrated).
P. Fusco and H.W. Janson, The Romantics to Rodin, Los Angeles
County Museum, Los Angeles, 1980, pp. 304-6 (another cast illustrated).
Exhibition catalogue, Shepard Gallery Associates, New York, Spring 1985, p. 154.
H. Vollmer, Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, Leipzig, 1986, vol. XXIV, p. 408.
A. Pingeot and others, Chefs d'Oeuvre de la Sculpture du XIXE Siécle, Paris, 1986, p. 51 (another cast illustrated).
R. Dorment, Alfred Gilbert, Sculptor and Goldsmith, London, 1986, p. 101 (another cast illustrated).
M. Agulhon and others, La Sculpture du XIXE Siécle, une Memoire Retrouvèe, Paris, 1986, p. 96 (another cast illustrated).
M. Forrest, Art Bronzes, Pennsylvania, 1988, p. 54 (another cast illustrated).
P. Kjellberg, Les Bronzés du XIXe Siècle, Paris, 1989, p. 489 (another cast illustrated).
Ed. J. Turner, The Dictionnary of Art, Macmillan Publishers Limited, London, 1996, p. 147.

Exhibited

Paris, Salon, 1874, no. 3043 (a plaster version).

Lot Essay

One of the most successful French sculptors of his generation, Antonin Mercié studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and at the Académie de France in Rome. As early as 1868 he was awarded the Prix de Rome which was soon to be followed by numerous outstanding achievements, such as the cross of the Légion d'honneur in 1872, the Medal of Honor at the 1874 Salon for the Gloria Victis sculpture group, and the Grand Prize at the 1878 Exposition Beaux-Arts and in 1913 he was made the president of the Sociéte des Artistes Français.

The Gloria Victis sculpture group was completed shortly following the Franco-Prussian war. Initially Mercié planned the group to consist of Fame and a victorious soldier but following France's surrender the soldier was replaced with a defeated soldier. Replicas of this classic composition were used on monuments to the dead of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 in many French towns, including Niort, Deux-Sèvres, Agen, Lot et Garonne and Bordeaux.

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