Philippe Mercier

Philippe Mercier (also spelled Philip Mercier; 1689 – 18 July 1760) was an artist of French Huguenot descent from the German realm of Brandenburg-Prussia (later Kingdom of Prussia), usually defined to French school., , , and , define Mercier as a painter of French school. Active in England for most of his working life, Mercier is considered one of the first practitioners of the Rococo style, and is credited with influencing a new generation of 18th-century English artists.: "Never a first-rate artist, he had a flair for novelty in the French manner, and he seems not only to have been responsible for the introduction of the French genre style into English painting, but to have played a considerable part in popularising the 'conversation piece'"; : "Philippe Mercier (c. 1689-1760) looms large in the history of English eighteenth-century art. One of the first practitioners of the new rococo style, Mercier’s genre subjects and portraits provided the foundation for William Hogarth and the next generation of English artists."

Life Mercier was born in Berlin, the son of Pierre Mercier (died 1729, Dresden), a Huguenot tapestry-worker.: "Mr. P. Merciere. painter Born at Berlin, of French extraction." , give the painter's age at his death as seventy-one. From Walpole's account, , and , suggest that Mercier was the Pierre-Phillipe Mercier born in 1689 to Pierre Mercier in Berlin; however, it is noted that a Phillipe Mercier, also the son of a Huguenot tapestry-worker in Berlin, was born in 1691. He studied painting at the Akademie der Wissenschaften of Berlin Academy Webpage and later under Antoine Pesne, who had arrived in Berlin in 1710. Later, he travelled in Italy and France before arriving in London—"recommended by the Court at Hannover"—probably in 1716. He married in London in 1719 and lived in Leicester Fields.

He was appointed principal painter and librarian to the Prince and Princess of Wales at their independent establishment in Leicester Fields, and while he was in favour he painted various portraits of royalty, and no doubt many of the nobility and gentry. Of the royal portraits, those of the Prince of Wales and of his three sisters, painted in 1728, were all engraved in mezzotint by John Simon, and that of the three elder children of the Prince of Wales by John Faber the Younger in 1744. This last (entitled Playing Soldiers) was a typical piece of Mercier's composition, the children being made the subject of a spirited, if somewhat childish, allegory in their game of play. Prince George is represented with a firelock on his shoulder, teaching a dog his drill, while his little brother and sister are equally occupied in a scene that is aptly used to point a patriotic moral embodied in some verses subjoined to the plate, of which the concluding couplet is as follows:

In 1733, Mercier painted a Portrait of 'Frederick, Prince of Wales, playing a violoncello, and his Sisters'. National Portrait Gallery, London. There is an alternative version of the painting in the Royal Collection. In the painting 'The Sense of Hearing', 1744, women are playing violin, violoncello, harpsichord, and flute in the Yale Center for British Art.

Mercier lost favour at Court and was replaced as principal painter to Frederick Prince of Wales by John Ellys on 7 October 1736.page 11, Philip Mercier, 1689-1760. An exhibition of paintings and engravings. City Art Gallery, York, 21 June-20 July. Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood, 29 July-28 September, 1969 He 'went into the country' in 1736/7 and took rooms in Covent Garden, London.York City Art Gallery catalogue, 1969 In 1739 he relocated to York, where he focused on 'fancy' pictures concerned with domestic virtueYork City Art Gallery catalogue, 1969 and also practised portrait painting for over ten years, before returning to London in July 1751. In 1752, Mercier went to Portugal at the request of several English merchants along with his family. He did not long remain there, however, but came back to London, where he died in 1760.

John Faber the Younger also engraved six plates of "Rural Life" after Mercier,For an example see https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:52062 and several other subjects of his have survived him.

In August 2016, Mercier's painting Portrait of a Lady (1744) was one of the subjects for episode 19 in the 5th series of the BBC Television series Fake or Fortune?

Mercier's daughter Charlotte was also an artist in her early life, before turning to a life of dissolution and dying in the St James Workhouse two years after her father's death.Profile of Claude Mercier in the Dictionary of Pastellists Before 1800.

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Philippe Mercier

Bron en licentie