Mercury Riding Pegasus
Antoine Coysevox (1640-1720) · 1698-1702
Mercury, messenger of the gods, sits on the winged horse Pegasus and raises his caduceus, the staff entwined with two serpents. His winged hat and sandals identify him, and beneath the horse's hooves lies a heap of captured armour and weapons. The composition mirrors its pendant, Fame Riding Pegasus, across the courtyard: both horses rear, both riders turn outward, and both groups sit on rocks piled with trophies. Standing more than three metres high in Carrara marble, they were made to crown the balustrade above the horse pond at Marly and to be seen against the sky.
Jules Hardouin-Mansart ordered the two groups in 1698 as an allegory called the Fame of the King, celebrating the victories of Louis the Fourteenth. Plaster models were paid for from December 1698 and cast in 1699; the marble blocks came from the marble merchant Jérôme Derbais. On the rock Coysevox carved a proud Latin signature naming himself sculptor to the king, with the note that the two groups were made in two years. In 1719 both marbles were moved to the entrance of the Tuileries gardens, where they stayed until they came into the Louvre in 1986 and were replaced outside by copies.
Did You Know? For more than two hundred and sixty years this Mercury guarded the gate of the Tuileries gardens on the place de la Concorde.
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