MEISSONIER, Jean-Louis-Ernest

Meissonier was recognized by his contemporaries as a painter of small, remarkably accurate historical genre scenes, recalling the Dutch little masters of the seventeenth century. The smooth, hard surface of a panel particularly suited his meticulous technique, as it had suited the Dutch masters whom he so much admired.

This panel was commissioned by the fourth Marquess of Hertford who insisted on the insertion of Napoleon’s mameluke with his red and white cap in the background.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 51 minutes):

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 (Eroica) in E Flat major op. 55 (1803)

Marquesa de Manzanedo was an intimate friend of the Empress Eugenia Montijo.

The painting is signed and dated 1872.

As an artillery captain in the National Guard, Ernest Meissonier had witnessed the massacre of insurgents on a barricade of the rue de l’H�tel de Ville during the confrontations of June 1848. This watercolour, depicting the outcome of the fight, was always considered, by both the artist and his contemporaries, as a remarkable and unusual work. Almost fifty years after the events, Meissonier described his deep attachment to this work in a letter to the Belgian painter Alfred Stevens:

“I am not modest about this drawing, and I am not afraid to say that if I were rich enough to buy it back, I would do so immediately […] When I painted it, I was still terribly affected by the event I had just witnessed, and believe me, my dear Alfred, those things penetrate your soul when you reproduce them […] I saw it [the taking of the barricade] in all its horror, its defenders killed, shot, thrown out of the windows, the ground covered with their bodies, the earth still drinking their blood “.

The history of this drawing also makes it special as Eug�ne Delacroix was its first owner.

However, the political interpretation of the work remains difficult. This stems from the existence of a picture (kept at the Mus�e du Louvre) painted by the artist after his watercolour. The title and certainly the meaning of this “replica” are different. The painting became Memory of Civil War when the artist exhibited it at the Salon of 1850-1851. The precision of the version in oil gave it the “indifference of a daguerreotype”, which substantiated the accusations of inhumanity raised by some radical critics when they saw this painting.

The watercolour, on the other hand, mainly encountered criticism in the 19th century for the fact that it implicitly allowed the anathema bore by this reactionary and anti-revolutionary artist to be lifted. “Horribly true”, with a tragic lyricism totally unexpected in Meissonier’s art, usually dedicated to skilful, highly detailed scenes, the dramatic power of The Barricade belies the artist’s disaffection with the destiny of the people of his time.

This picture was painted by the artist after his watercolour The Barricade (Mus�e d’Orsay, Paris). The title and certainly the meaning of this “replica” are different. The painting became Memory of Civil War when the artist exhibited it at the Salon of 1850-1851. The precision of the version in oil gave it the “indifference of a daguerreotype”, which substantiated the accusations of inhumanity raised by some radical critics when they saw this painting.

In this panel Meissonier depicts Napoleon in 1814, the final year of his rule, leading his soldiers into defeat. The painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1864.

Ernest Meissonier initially made his reputation with works of moderate size and intricate detail depicting elegant scenes of 17th and 18th century life. By the 1860s, despite his established fame, Meissonier began to focus his compositions on scenes of Napoleonic glory. Executed with the same fine brushwork and acute attention to detail as his earlier subjects, these scenes from the great days of the French Empire eventually made Meissonier’s works the highest-grossing, most sought-after paintings of any living artist.