Meissonier, Jean Louis Ernest

Related Category: European Art, 1600 to the Present: Biographies

(zhäN lwē ĕrnĕst´ māsônyā´), 1815–91, French genre and military painter. His study of the Dutch masters was evident in his first Salon-exhibited painting, A Visit to the Burgomaster (1834). His small genre paintings are meticulous as to furnishings and costumes. Among Meissonier's battle scenes, chiefly of the Napoleonic Wars, are Napoleon I with His Staff (Louvre) and Friedland, 1807 (Metropolitan Mus.). His genre pictures include The Voyagers (Louvre) and The Lute Player (Metropolitan Mus.).

See study by V. C. O. Gréard (tr. 1897).