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Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (21 February 1815 – 21 January 1891) was a
leading French Classicist painter and sculptor famous for his depictions
of Napoleon, his armies and military themes. He documented sieges and
manoeuvres and was the teacher of Édouard Detaille.
He was born at Lyon. From his schooldays he showed a taste for painting,
to which some early sketches, dated 1823, bear witness. After being
placed with a druggist, he obtained leave from his parents to become an
artist, and, owing to the recommendation of a painter named Potier,
himself a second class Prix de Rome, he was admitted to Léon Cogniet\'s
studio.
He paid short visits to Rome and to Switzerland, and exhibited in the
Salon of 1831 a painting then called Les Bourgeois Flamands (Dutch
Burghers), but also known as The Visit to the Burgomaster, subsequently
purchased by Sir Richard Wallace, in whose collection (at Hertford
House, London) it is, with fifteen other examples of this painter. It
was the first attempt in France in the particular genre which was
destined to make Meissonier famous: microscopic painting miniature in
oils. Working hard for daily bread at illustrations for the publishers
Curmer, Hetzel and Dubocherhe, Meissonier also exhibited at the Salon of
1836 with Chess Player and the Errand Boy.
fter some not very happy attempts at religious painting, he returned,
under the influence of Chenavard, to the class of work he was born to
excel in, and exhibited with much success the Game of Chess (1841), the
Young Man playing the \'Cello (1842), Painter in his Studio (1843), The
Guard Room, the Young Man looking at Drawings, the Game of Piquet
(1845), and the Game of Bowls, works which show the finish and certainty
of his technique, and assured his success.
After his Soldiers (1848) he began A Day in June, which was never
finished, and exhibited A Smoker (1849) and Bravos (Les Bravi, 1852). In
1855 he touched the highest mark of his achievement with The Gamblers
and The Quarrel (La Rixe), which was presented by Napoleon III to the
English Court. His triumph was sustained at the Salon of 1857, when he
exhibited nine pictures, and drawings; among them the Young Man of the
Time of the Regency, The Painter, The Shoeing Smith, The Musician, and A
Reading at Diderot\'s. To the Salon of 1861 he sent The Emperor at
Solferino, A Shoeing Smith, A Musician, A Painter, and M. Louis Fould;
to that of 1864 another version of The Emperor at Solferino, and 1814.
He subsequently exhibited A Gamblers\' Quarrel (1865) and Desaix and the
Army of the Rhine (1867).
Meissonier worked with elaborate care and a scrupulous observation of
nature. Some of his works, as for instance his 1807, remained ten years
in course of execution. To the great Exhibition of 1878 he contributed
sixteen pictures: the portrait of Alexandre Dumas, fils which had been
seen at the Salon of 1877, Cuirassiers of 1805, A Venetian Painter,
Moreau and his Staff before Hohenlinden, a Portrait of a Lady, the Road
to La Salice, The Two Friends, The Outpost of the Grand Guard, A Scout,
and Dictating his Memoirs. Thenceforward he exhibited less in the
Salons, and sent his work to smaller exhibitions. Being chosen president
of the Great National Exhibition in 1883, he was represented there by
such works as The Pioneer, The Army of the Rhine, The Arrival of the
Guests, and Saint Mark.
On the 24th of May 1884 an exhibition was opened at the Petit Gallery of
Meissonier\'s collected works, including 146 examples. As president of
the jury on painting at the Exhibition of 1889 he contributed some new
pictures. In the following year the New Salon was formed (the Société
Nationale des Beaux-Arts), and Meissonier became its president. He
exhibited there in 1890 his painting 1807; and in 1891, shortly after
his death, his Barricade was displayed there.
A less well-known class of work than his painting is a series of
etchings: The Last Supper, The Skill of Vuillaume the Lute Player, The
Little Smoker, The Old Smoker, the Preparations for a Duel, Anglers,
Troopers, The Reporting Sergeant, and Polichinelle, in the Hertford
House collection. He also tried lithography, but the prints are now
scarcely to be found. Of all the painters of the century, Meissonier was
one of the most fortunate in the matter of payments. His Cuirassiers,
now in the late duc d\'Aumale\'s collection at Chantilly, was bought
from the artist for £10,000, sold at Brussels for £11,000, and finally
resold for £16,000.
Besides his genre portraits, he painted some others: those of Doctor
Lefevre, of Chenavard, of Vanderbilt, of Doctor Guyon, and of Stanford.
He also collaborated with the painter Français in a picture of The Park
at St Cloud.
In 1838 Meissonier married the sister of M. Steinheil, a painter.
Meissonier was attached by Napoleon III to the imperial staff, and
accompanied him during the campaign in Italy at the beginning of the war
in 1870. During the siege of Paris in 1871 he was colonel of a regiment
de marche, one of the improvised units thrown up in the chaos of the
Franco-Prussian war. In 1840 he was awarded a third-class medal, a
second-class medal in 1841, first-class medals in 1843 and 1844 and
medals of honour at the great exhibitions. In 1846 he was appointed
knight of the Légion d\'honneur and promoted to the higher grades in
1856, 1867 (June 29), and 1880 (July 12), receiving the Grand Cross in
1889 (October 29).
He nevertheless cherished certain ambitions which remained unfulfilled.
He hoped to become a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts, but the
appointment he desired was never given to him. He also aspired to be
chosen deputy or made senator, but he was not elected. In 1861 he
succeeded Abel de Pujol as member of the Academy of Fine Arts. On the
occasion of the centenary festival in honour of Michelangelo in 1875 he
was the delegate of the Institute of France to Florence, and spoke as
its representative. Meissonier was an admirable draughtsman upon wood,
his illustrations to Les Conies Rémois (engraved by Lavoignat), to
Lamartine\'s Fall of an Angel to Paul and Virginia, and to The French
Painted by Themselves being among the best known. The leading engravers
and etchers of France have been engaged upon plates from the works of
Meissonier, and many of these plates command the highest esteem of
collectors. Meissonier died in Paris on the 21st of January 1891.
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