10 Facts About Mark Antokolsky

Mordukh Matysovich Antokolsky was born in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Mark Antokolsky studied in the Imperial Academy of Arts at St Petersburg.

Mark Antokolsky believed that sculpture was a social and humane ideal.

Every year Mark Antokolsky would come back to his native town of Vilnius during his summer holidays.

In 1871 Mark Antokolsky started his first "Russian" sculpture, "Ivan the Terrible", which made an enormous impression on all valuators and connoisseurs of art.

Mark Antokolsky used 4,000 rubles for the "Ivan the Terrible" to buy half of a big house in Vilnius, the other part of which had previously belonged to his wife.

In 1876, upon his regular visits to Vilnius, Mark Antokolsky rebuilt the house.

In Rome, Mark Antokolsky completed the statue of Peter the Great for Peterhof Palace in 1872, with its copies for Taganrog and Archangelsk.

Mark Antokolsky left for Paris the same year, and stayed in the French capital until the end of his life, apart from periods on Lake Maggiore, in northern Italy.

Mark Antokolsky had planned a monument to Catherine II in Vilnius.