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MEISSONIER, JEAN LOUIS ERNEST (1815—1891),
French painter, was born at Lyons on the
21st of February 1815. From his schooldays the artist showed a taste for painting, to which
some early sketches, dated 1823, bear
witness. After being placed with a druggist,
the classicist obtained leave from his parents to become
an artist, and, owing to the recommendation
of a painter named [Jules] Potier, himself a
second class Prix de Rome, Jean Louis Ernest
Meissonier was admitted
to Leon Cogniet’s studio. He paid short
visits to Rome and to Switzerland, and
exhibited in the Salon of 1831 a picture
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 Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier
famous microscopic painting—miniature in
oils. Working hard for daily bread at
illustrations for the publishers — Curmer,
Hetze and Duboclier — the painter also exhibited at
the Salon of 1836 the Chess Player and the
Errand Boy. After some not very happy
attempts at religious painting, Jean Louis
Ernest Meissonier 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), The Painter in his Studio
(1843), The Guard Room, the Young Man
looking at Drawings, the Game of Piquet
(1845), and the Game of Bowls — Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier paintings which
show the finish and certainty of his
technique, and assured his success. After
his Soldiers (1848) the classicist began A Day in June,
which was never finished, and exhibited A
Smoker (1849) and Bravos (Les Bravi, 5852).
In 1855 Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier 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 Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier exhibited nine paintings, 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 Meissonier 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. Jean Louis Ernest
Meissonier 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
Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier paintings, as for instance his 1807,
remained ten years in course of execution.
To the great Exhibition of 1878 the classicist contributed sixteen pictures: the portrait
of Alexandre Dumas which had been seen at
the Salon of 1877, Cuirassiers of 1805, A
Venetian Painter, Moreau and his Staff
before Hobenlinden, 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
Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier painting to smaller exhibitions. Being chosen
president of the Great National Exhibition
in 1883, the painter was represented there by such Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier
paintings 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 collected Meissonier paintings, including 146 examples. |
Toperfect Group