Sculpture – David Vanquisher of Goliath, Marius – Jean – Antonin Mercié (1845-1916) – Bronze

With the war of 1870 and the defeat of the country, French society was overcome by a feeling of humiliation and the desire for revenge.

Such a state of mind shows in this "David" the promise of a France which will one day, despite its weakness, defeat the Prussian Goliath, like the young shepherd of Israel who, with the sole help of his sling, brought down the enemy giant.
The sculpture was therefore an immediate success: The Plaster sculpture, executed in Rome, where the young artist finished his training, earned him the Legion of Honour, and was commissioned in bronze by the State in 1872, then placed in the Musée du Luxembourg – the Musée des Artistes Vivants – in 1874.
It became one of the most widely distributed images in illustrated newspapers, and was so popular that it was published in six different sizes by the founder F. Barbedienne.

At the turn of the 1870s, Antonin Mercié embodied the young generation of French sculptors who wanted to give, at the heart of a classical education, a more vibrant expression to their figures.
He seeks this alliance between learned composition and nervous modeling in the great models of the Florentine Renaissance:
hence the large and beautiful curves of the arm extended by the movement of the sword, of the bent leg, the grace of David's movement which invites the spectator to turn around the different planes which progressively modulate the space.

Between modern classicism and explicit realism, A. Mercié finds an original path.