Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercié

French, 1845 - 1916

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French sculptor and painter (1845-1916)

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A winged woman has hoisted a young, muscular man up and across one shoulder in this freestanding bronze statue. In this view, the woman runs toward us, her back foot lifted, as she wraps her arms around the man’s thighs. She looks off to our left, her hair swept up. Long, narrow wings slice into the space behind her. Her chest and shoulders are covered with gold armor, and drapery swirls around her legs. The man is nearly nude, covered only with a cloth across his groin. His arms are flung wide, one reaching high in the air and the other holding a broken sword by the woman’s shoulder. His head lolls to one side, his lips parted. A laurel branch lies at the woman’s foot on a small mound textured like a rock. An inscription on the front rim of the base reads “GLORIA VICTIS.”
Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercié, Gloria Victis, model c. 1874, cast after 1879, bronze, Andrew W. Mellon Fund, 1985.52.1

Gloria Victis

Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercié · model c. 1874, cast after 1879 · bronze ·  Accession ID  1985.52.1

Bibliography

1914

  • Lami, Stanislas. Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l'école française au dix-neuvième siècle. 4 vols. Paris, 1914-1921: 3:431-436.

1980

  • Fusco, Peter. "Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercié." In The Romantics to Rodin: French Nineteenth-Century Sculpture from North American Collections. Peter Fusco and H.W. Janson, eds. Exh. cat. 5 venues. New York, 1980: 303.

1986

  • Vogt, Christiane. "Un Artiste oublié: Antonin Mercié." In La Sculpture du XIX Siècle, Une Mémoire Retrouvée. Rencontres de l'Ecole du Louvre. Paris, 1986.

2000

  • Butler, Ruth, and Suzanne Glover Lindsay, with Alison Luchs, Douglas Lewis, Cynthia J. Mills, and Jeffrey Weidman. European Sculpture of the Nineteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2000: 292.