In 1868, the sculptor created the high-relief composition The Spanish Inquisition’s Attack Against Jews Secretly Celebrating Passover in a Cellar. While working on this piece, the image of Nathan the Wise appeared: a strong-willed man, who was noble and courageous. It transformed into an independent work, and became famous due to the numerous bronze casts. The critic Vladimir Stasov praised Nathan the Wise, and the high relief itself is considered to be an important step not only in Antokolsky’s career, but also in the development of Russian realism.

Antokolsky Mark

Antokolsky, Mark Matveevich
1842, Vilna — 1902, Bad Homburg (Germany)

The sculptor Mark Antokolsky moved to St Petersburg in 1862, where he studied under Nikolai Pimenov and Johann Reymers at the Imperial Academy of Arts. In 1871 he started work on his sculpture of Ivan the Terrible (plaster, Kensington Museum, London). During the early 1870s he lived in Italy, before moving to France in 1877, although he visited Russia every year. Antokolsky was awarded a gold medal and Légion d’honneur at the Exposition Universelle, Paris in 1878 and was later made a professor, then full member of the Imperial Academy of Arts, where he held solo exhibitions in 1880 and 1893. He was also an honorary member of Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Akademie der Künste in Berlin and Accademia di Belle Arti in Urbino.