15 Works, February 21st. is artist Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier's day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #052

Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier (French, 1815 - 1891)

1814

Oil on panel

H: 12 3/4 x W: 9 1/2 in. (32.4 x 24.2 cm)

The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

In this small painting commissioned by the subject's nephew, Prince Napoleon, the emperor is portrayed in a forbidding landscape just after his last, hard-won victory in the 1814 French campaign that was fought at Arcis-sur-Aube, near Troyes: 23,000 French troops withstood the onslaught of 90,000 Austrians, but were unable to capitalize on their victory. More on this painting

Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (21 February 1815 – 31 January 1891) was a 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.

 Ernest Meissonier (French, Lyons 1815–1891 Paris)

 1807, Friedland, ca. 1861–75

Oil on canvas

53 1/2 x 95 1/2 in. (135.9 x 242.6 cm)

 Metropolitan Museum of Art

This work, the largest and most ambitious painting by an artist renowned for meticulously rendered cabinet pictures, evokes one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s greatest victories. Meissonier made hundreds of preparatory studies for it, including drawings and sculptural models. He conceived the picture as part of a cycle of five key episodes in the life of the Emperor, only one other of which was completed: The Campaign of France—1814, an image of defeat (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) (See below). More on this painting

Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier  (1815–1891)

Campagne de France, c. 1864

Oil on panel

Paris, Musée d'Orsay

Napoleon and his staff are retuning from Soissons after the battle of Laon.

Meissonier excelled at depicting scenes of chivalry and masculine adventure against a backdrop of pre-Revolutionary and pre-industrial France, specialising in scenes from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century life.

From his schooldays Ernest showed a taste for painting. At age seventeen, he obtained leave from his parents to become an artist. He was admitted to Léon Cogniet's studio. He formed his style after the Dutch masters as represented in the Louvre.

Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier (1815–1891)

Les Bourgeois Flamands/ Dutch Burghers, 1833–1834

Oil on canvas

H 18 x W 21.8 cm

The Wallace Collection, London

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) (See above), but also known as The Visit to the Burgomaster. 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 (See below) and the Errand Boy.

Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier  (1815–1891)

Chess Players, c. 1836

Oil on panel

Height: 24.1 cm (9.5 in); Width: 31.7 cm (12.5 in)

I have no further description, at this time

After some not very happy attempts at religious painting, he returned 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.

He specialised in scenes from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century life, portraying his bonshommes, or goodfellows - playing chess, smoking pipes, reading books, sitting before easels or double basses, or posing in the uniforms of musketeers or halberdiers; all executed in microscopic detail. Typical examples include Halt at an Inn.

Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier

The Smoker (A Man of the First Empire), c. 1873

Watercolor and gouache on paper

13 7/8 x 8 5/8 in. (35.2 x 22 cm 

The face and hands are carefully modeled. The edges of the lapel and the hat are grease-stained and frayed, as befits an old outmoded soldier from Bonaparte's era.

The highlights on the pipe are very small, considering that the whole painting is the size of a piece of legal-size paper. Watercolor with gouache can be precise and highly descriptive if you take your time. More on this painting

After his Soldiers (1848) he began A Day in June, which was never finished, and exhibited A Smoker (1849) (See above) and Bravos (Les Bravi, 1852). In 1855 he touched the highest mark of his achievement with The Gamblers (See below) and The Quarrel (La Rixe) (See below), which was presented by Napoleon III to the English Court. 

After Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier

The Gamblers

I have no further description, at this time

After Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier

La rixe/ The Quarrel

Oil on panel

33 x 43,2 cm

Private collection

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. When, in the summer of 1859, Emperor Napoleon III, together with Victor Emmanuel II King of Piedmont and Sardinia, tried to oust the Habsburgs from their territories in northern Italy, Meissonier received a government commission to illustrate scenes from the campaign. 

Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier  (1815–1891)

Napoleon III at the Battle of Solferino, c. 1863

Oil on canvas

Height: 43.5 cm (17.1 in)

Musée d'Orsay

This Napoleon III at Solferino is the fruit of a very painstaking approach. Known as «the genius of the infinitely small», Meissonier also spent a great deal of time preparing for his pictures. He went back to the battlefield after the battle and spent a year doing portraits of the soldiers in the imperial escort. It was not until the Salon of 1864 that he finally exhibited the work. It is of almost photographic accuracy and it appears to ignore the battle completely, concentrating on the emperor who is watching the combat «like a chess player coolly studying the board. More on this painting

The Emperor Napoleon III at Solferino (See above) took Meissonier more than three years to complete. The work, a battle scene, represented something of a departure for the painter of bonshommes and musketeers though Meissonier had already painted scenes of violence and massacre, such as Remembrance of Civil War, and in 1848 had indeed seen active service as a captain in the National Guard, when he fought on the side of the republican government during the June Days. In autumn 1861 he was elected to a chair in the Institut de France when the members of the Académie des Beaux-Arts voted for him to join their number. To the Salon of 1861 he sent A Shoeing Smith, A Musician, A Painter, and M. Louis Fould; to that of 1864 The Emperor at Solferino, and 1814. He subsequently exhibited A Gamblers' Quarrel (1865) and Desaix and the Army of the Rhine (1867).

Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier

PETANQUE PLAYERS IN ANTIBES, c. 1869

Oil on panel

12,2 x 18 cm ; 4  7/8  by 7 in.

Private collection

From 1868, Meissonier goes regularly to Antibes in the south of France. The Salice road by the Mediterranean sea is one of his favourite spots and he often paints it. Antibes, la promenade à cheval (musée d'Orsay, Paris) and Le général et son aide de camp, route de la Salice (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) show the Salice road seen much closer to the sea and the fort. In this picture, Meissonier has captured the beautiful light and colours of Southern France. More on this painting

In June 1868 Meissonier travelled to Antibes with canvas and easel. In 1794 Napoleon had been imprisoned in Fort Carré, and in 1815, returning from exile on Elba in 1815 he had come ashore at Golfe-Jouan—and the island of Sainte-Marguerite where the Man in the Iron Mask was imprisoned 1686–1698, was a little out to sea.

The light of the south attracted Meissonnier. "It is delightful to sun oneself in the brilliant light of the South instead of wandering about like gnomes in the fog. The view at Antibes is one of the fairest sights in nature." 

Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891)

Moreau and Dessoles in front of Hohenlinden, c. 1875

Oil on wood

37.5 x 47 cm

National Gallery of Ireland,  Dublin

The Battle of Hohenlinden was fought on 3 December 1800, during the French Revolutionary Wars. A French army under Jean Victor Marie Moreau won a decisive victory over the Austrians and Bavarians led by Archduke John of Austria. After being forced into a disastrous retreat, the allies were compelled to request an armistice that effectively ended the War of the Second Coalition. Hohenlinden is 33 km east of Munich in modern Germany. More on this painting

Ernest Meissonier (French, 1815–1891)Title:

Self-portrait along the Route de la Salice, Antibes , c. 1868

Oil on Board

14 x 26 cm. (5.5 x 10.2 in.)

Private collection

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 (See below), A Venetian Painter, Moreau and his Staff before Hohenlinden (See above), a Portrait of a Lady, the Road to La Salice (See above), 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.

Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier  (1815–1891)

1805, Cuirassiers Before the Charge, c. 1878

Oil on canvas

Length: 198 cm (77.9 in); Width: 125 cm (49.2 in)

Condé Museum, Château de Chantilly in Chantilly,

This painting depicts a scene set in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars. Under low cloud cover, two rows of cuirassiers await the signal to begin charging, with five non-commissioned officers in front of them also at the ready. They are wearing the distinctly coloured uniforms of the 12th Cuirassier Regiment. On the left, a Division General in a tail-coat and distinctive gold and scarlet sash is pointing in a direction while addressing a cuirassier officer, probably the Colonel of the 12th Regiment. Behind them stand a trumpeter in yellow, an aide-de-camp to the Division General in a hussar-style uniform, and two more cuirassiers. On the right, a group of artillerymen are moving in front of a row of houses. In the far distance, on a hill between the second and third non-commissioned officer from the right, can be seen Napoleon and his chief of staff. More on this painting

On 24 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 (See below) was displayed there.

Ernest MEISSONIER (Lyon, 1815 - Poissy, 1891)

The Barricade, Rue de la Mortellerie, June 1848,

also known as Remembrance of Civil War

Salon of 1850-1851

H. 0.29 m; W. 0.22 m

The Louvre 

Ernest Meissonier has painted a Paris scene observed after a barricade was taken by the National Guard during the workers' riots in June 1848. This picture, devoid of pretension or pomposity, is highly original compared with a previous one also depicting a barricade: Liberty Leading the People (July 28, 1830) by Eugène Delacroix. Meissonier's painting is based on realistic observation. Known for his minutely detailed Ancien Régime genre scenes, the painter has here created his masterpiece.

In the work we see numerous corpses and severed limbs of the rioters lying amongst the cobblestones in the middle of a street lined with old houses. 

Meissonier painted every part of the canvas, the cobblestones as well as the rioters, with the same attention to detail. Unlike historical paintings generally, the work seems to portray a scene observed without comment or message. Although it depicts a historical event, it is a work that is more akin to genre paintings, particularly on account of its small size. It has recently been interpreted by an art historian as a warning to future rebels. Indeed, the artist's impassive reaction to the horror in front of him may well express the hostility of his own social class, the bourgeoisie, toward the underprivileged. More on this painting

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.

Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier  (1815–1891)

The siege of Paris in 1870, c. 1884

Oil on canvas

Height: 54 cm (21.2 in); Width: 71 cm (27.9 in)

Musée d'Orsay

The siege of Paris – that took place from 19 September 1870 to 28 January 1871 and the consequent capture of the city by Prussian force – culminated in France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and the establishment of both the German Empire[2] and Paris Commune. More on The siege of Paris

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 (1870–1871) (See above) 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).

When the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts was re-vitalized, in 1890, Ernest Meissonier was elected its first chairman, but he died soon

Rue Meissonier, in the 17th Arrondissement in Paris, France, is named after him. More on Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, 365 Saints and 365 Days, also visit my Boards on Pinterest

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others. Some Images may be subject to copyright

I don't own any of these images - credit is always given when due unless it is unknown to me. if I post your images without your permission, please tell me.

I do not sell art, art prints, framed posters or reproductions. Ads are shown only to compensate the hosting expenses.

If you enjoyed this post, please share with friends and family.

Thank you for visiting my blog and also for liking its posts and pages.

Please note that the content of this post primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online.