STATUE--LIBRARY ("GLORIA VICTIS!")

From Knob Knowledge

"Gloria Victis!" ("glory to the vanquished!") statue in Daniel Library is a bronze copy of the statue created in 1874 by French sculptor Antonin Mercié (1845-1916). Mercié designed this sculpture following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. He intended to honor those French soldiers who had fallen in the conflict, especially his friend, the artist Henri Regnault (1843-1871). Here, a winged female allegorical image of Fame (or of Hope) carries to glory a dying French hero, his broken sword a sign of defeat. Mercié's original plaster sculpture won a medal at the 1874 Paris Salon. Bronze copies were cast in different sizes by the great foundry of Ferdinand Barbedienne. This copy was donated to The Citadel in 1942 by George Hammond Sullivan in memory of his father, Algernon Sydney Sullivan. Mercié also sculpted the equestrian statue of General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia. (Sources: Joseph T. Knox, Antonin Mercié, Sculptor of the Lee Monument (Richmond: French Institute, St. Christopher's School, 1990) --PLEASE NOTE-- The Daniel Library does not have a copy of this book; Theodore Child, "Ferdinand Barbedienne, Artistic Bronze," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 73, no. 436, Sept. 1886, pp. 489-504) (DH)