French sculptor and painter, was born in Toulouse. He entered the école des Beaux Arts, Paris, and studied under Alexandre Falguière and Jouffroy, and in 1868 gained the Grand Prix de Rome. His first great popular successes were the David and Gloria Victis, which was shown and received the Medal of Honour of the Paris Salon. The bronze was subsequently placed in the Square Montholon.

The bronze David was one of his most popular works. The Biblical hero is depicted naked with the head of Goliath at his feet like Donatello’s David, but with a turbaned head and sheathing his long sword.

Numerous reproductions exist, most of which partially cover David’s nudity with a loincloth. The life size original is now in the Musée d’Orsay.

In 1887 the Lee Monument Commission chose Jean Antoine Mercie to be the sculptor of The Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Virginia.

Other works by Mercié are:

Numerous other statues, portrait busts, and medallions came from the sculptor’s hand, which gained him a medal of honor at the Paris Exhibition of 1878 and the grand prix at that of 1889.

Among the paintings exhibited by the artist are:

He was subsequently elected to grand officer of the Légion d’Honneur, and in 1913 became the president of the Société des Artistes Français. He died in Paris in 1916.