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A Fascinating Bronze Sculpture ""Gloria Victis"", by Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercie, French 1845-1916. Inscribed Antonin Mercie, Gloria Victis, Reduction mecanique Collas. numbered 681 and with foundry mark: F Barbedienne, fondeur, Paris bronze with light brown patina. 3ft 1/2"" High Merci‚, a native of Toulouse, where he was born in 1845, studied sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris with Fran‡ois Jouffroy (1806-1882) and Alexandre FalguiŠre (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, Merci‚ was awarded the cross of the L‚gion d?Honneur and a first-class medal; his figure was purchased and cast in bronze for the prestigious national museum of living artists, the Mus‚e du Luxembourg (now at the Mus‚e 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.
Condition: Very Good