Philip Mercier (also known as Philippe Mercier) (?1689 / 1691 - 18 July 1760) was a portraitist active in England.
Painter of portraits and a pioneer in England of conversation piece and ‘fancy pictures’; an important figure in the introduction of French taste into England.
Born in France to a tapestry worker of French Huguenot stock working for the Elector of Brandenburg, he trained there from 1711 under Antoine Pesne, another French-born artist, who was working as Court Painter to Frederick I of Prussia. Mercier travelled for some time in Italy and France, familiarising himself with the work of Watteau (even etching and perhaps forging it) and acting as an art dealer in Watteau's works (holding, for example, a sale of pictures "collected abroad" in London in 1742). He then settled for good in England in 1715, receiving his first patronage from courtiers at the Hanoverian court, and eventually (from straight after Frederick's arrival in England from Hanover in December 1728) Frederick, Prince of Wales, for all of whom he produced conversation pieces and portraits. He was a member of the St Luke's Club between 1726 and 1735.
He was made Frederick's Principal Painter (1729–36) and Library Keeper (1730–8), with the latter post also including buying pictures for the Prince's collection, but fell from royal favour within ten years and moved out of London, possibly to Northamptonshire, for a year during 1736–7. He then returned to London by October 1737, to focus on 'fancy pictures' influenced by Chardin. In 1739 he moved to York for 12 years, which proved his most productive period. There he painted portraits and sentimental domestic subjects, playing to subjects favoured by the print market (a "fancy" series by him, along with other works, were printed, mainly by Faber Jnr and Houston). He made visits to Ireland (1747), Scotland (1750) and Portugal (1751–2, receiving English merchants' portrait commissions), finally returning to London in 1752, where he exhibited three works at the first summer exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1760 before dying later that year in London.
His children were Charlotte (1738–62) and his son Philip, who both became artists.