Antokolsky Mark (Matveyevich)
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(b Vil’no [now Vilnius], Lithuania, 2 Nov 1843; d Bad-Homburg, 9
July 1902). Russian sculptor of Lithuanian birth. He was the son of
an innkeeper of modest means. From 1862 he studied under Nikolay
Pimenov (1812–64) as an occasional student at the Academy of Arts
(Akademiya Khudozhestv) in St Petersburg. While still a student he
produced two high relief sculptures, which attracted attention for
their realism and which were awarded silver medals: the Jewish
Tailor (wood, 1864) and The Miser (wood and ivory, 1865; both St
Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). In 1871 Antokol’sky left Russia for health
reasons. He worked first in Rome and then, from 1877, in Paris. He
gained fame in Europe mainly through a number of monumental statues
on subjects drawn from Russian history: Ivan the Terrible (marble,
1875; Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.), Nestor the Chronicler (marble, 1890)
and Yermak (bronze, 1891; both St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.), and also
on subjects connected with the history of religion and philosophy:
Christ (marble, 1876; Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.), Death of Socrates
(marble, 1875–7) and Spinoza (marble, 1886–7; both St Petersburg,
Rus. Mus.). He produced a whole series of sculpted portraits of his
contemporaries, executed in a realistic style: Vladimir Vasil’yevich
Stasov (marble, 1872–3; St Petersburg, Saltykov-Shchedrin Pub.
Lib.), Sergey Petrovich Botkin (marble, 1874) and Ivan Turgenev
(plaster, 1880; both St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.).
