Marius Jean Antonin Mercié
“Enlevement des Sabines”
Circa 1885

Name: “Enlevement des Sabines”
Brand: Marius Jean Antonin Mercié
Price: 3800 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Here for your consideration is a beautiful highly detailed bronze done in the forth quarter of the nineteen century after the work of Jean Boulogne, known as Giambologna. Boulogne’s sculpture was done in marble and was completed between 1579 and 1583. The sculptor of this bronze is Antonin Mercie, a well known French sculptor born in 1845. The bronze represents the Rape of the Sabine Women (Latin: Sabinae raptae), also known as the Abduction of the Sabine Women or the Kidnapping of the Sabine Women, was an incident in Roman mythology in which the men of Rome committed a mass abduction of young women from the other cities in the region. It has been a frequent subject of artists and sculptors, particularly during the Renaissance and post-Renaissance eras. Signed on base “Mercie” for Antonin Mercie.. In very good condition wirh original brown patina. The base which depicts rocks is bronze and has been painted a matt black. Provenance:: A Sarasota estate. Mercié, (Marius Jean Antonin Mercie) was a native of Toulouse, where he was born in 1845, studied sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris with François Jouffroy (1806-1882) and Alexandre Falguière (1831-1900). His Salon debut, with a modest portrait medallion of a young girl, took place the same year he won the Prix de Rome, 1868. The youth's envois immediately drew the honors normally accrued over time by an established artist, launching an exceptional career even for an Ecole-trained professional. When he showed his David in the Salon of 1872, Mercié was awarded the cross of the Légion d'Honneur and a first-class medal; his figure was purchased and cast in bronze for the prestigious national museum of living artists, the Musée du Luxembourg (now at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris). His next envoi, the Gloria Victis, created a sensation from the very moment it appeared in Rome, and was immediately acquired and executed in multiples, as memorials throughout France for the dead of the Franco-Prussian War. As prolific as he was popular with the public and with patrons, Mercié was much in demand as a monumental sculptor. He executed architectural decoration, such as the Genius of the Arts (c. 1877, bronze relief; facade of the Palais du Louvre, Paris) and Fame, the colossal gilt-bronze figure for the dome of the Palais du Trocadéro, also Paris (1878). He decorated the tombs of some of the most eminent figures of his century: historian Jules Michelet (date, location?); national president and historian Adolphe Thiers (c. 1879 and c. 1891, both Père-Lachaise cemetery, Paris); and Louis-Philippe and his wife Marie-Amélie, and two of their sons (dates not known, Chapelle Royale, Dreux). Mercié produced yet more celebrated war memorials, notably his Quand Même! (inaugurated 1884, Place d'Armes, Belfort) and the bronze group commemorating the defense of Châteaudun (inaugurated 1897, promenade du Mail, Châteaudun), as well as a host of portrait statues of modern politicians (notably that of Jules Ferry, Saint-Dié, Vosges) and, for her native village of Domrémy, a memorial to Joan of Arc in front of her home. The artist also won critical and official acclaim for paintings shown in the Salons of the 1880s and 1890s. Mercié received most of the major institutional awards of his time. He won the highest medals at the universal expositions; election to the Académie des Beaux-Arts (1889); a professorship at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts; election to grand officier of the Légion d'Honneur; and in 1913 the presidency of the Société des Artistes Françaises. Along with Chapu--whose career is closely intertwined with his as peer, collaborator, and preceding faculty at the Ecole--and Dalou, Mercié was one of the most successful and prominent sculptors of the period into World War I. He died in Paris in 1916.

Creator:

Marius Jean Antonin Mercié (1845 - 1916)

Creation Year:

Circa 1885

Dimensions:

Height: 18 in (45.72 cm)Width: 6.25 in (15.88 cm)Depth: 6.25 in (15.88 cm)

Medium:

Bronze

Movement & Style:

Academic

Period:

1880-1889