The Chess Game

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.