Mounted Cavalier

Medium: Oil On Panel
Size: 19 x 12 cm (7.5 x 4.7 in)
Signed: Signed (monogram): EM
Seal Vente Meissonier 1893.

Born on 21 February 1815 in Lyon. In 1818 his family moved to Paris where he studied under A. J. Potier c.1832 3 and attended Cogniet's studio for some months. He first showed at the Salon in 1834, and was active as a book illustrator 1835 46. By 1840 he was recognized as a painter of small, remarkably accurate historical genre scenes, recalling the Dutch little masters of the seventeenth century; he had historical costumes made up and his collection of arms and armor was to be bequeathed to the Musée de I'Armée. 'Nowadays the only thing left for a painter is to show people the past (les choses historiques) as it was (dans leur exactitude)', he said; Gautier hailed him as 'le roi de Lilliput'. Hard working and conscientious, he became immensely successful, building a country house at Poissy (1845, with a railway track from which to study the horse in motion) and an hôtel in the boulevard des Malesherbes (c. 1872), both largely to his own historicist design. In 1859 he attended the battle of Solferino (he was an officer in the National Guard in 1848 and 1870 71), and thereafter he turned increasingly to the Napoleonic Legend. He showed in the Salon 1834-67, was elected in 1861 to the Institut (of which he was President from 1876), and was successively chevalier (1846), officier (1855), commandeur (1867) and grand officier (1878) of the Legion of Honor; in 1889 he became the first artist to hold the Grand Croix of the order. A retrospective exhibition at Georges Petit's in 1884 marked the fiftieth anniversary of his début at the Salon. He died in Paris on 3 1 January 1891. A memorial exhibition, containing 1,400 works, was held by Petit in 1893, when de Fourcauld suggested Meissonier may have had 'trop de talent, pas assez de sensibilite'.

NOTE ON MEISSONIER'S PANELS

The smooth, hard surface of a panel particularly suited Meissonier's meticulous technique, as it had suited the Dutch seventeenth century masters whom he so much admired. 'I never hesitate to scratch out a day's work and start again if I think I can do better', he said.' 'Nearly all my drawings (not to mention painted panels) have bits of paper stuck on them ... how often do you hear in the sale room, "That's a Meissonier, there are additions" '."I often make additions to my pictures. Since I alter my sketches in the same way it becomes essential. When adding to a panel, never use a cradle. The wood must always be free to expand, as it wants, and a tongue join will suffice – I’m always doing this. If the tongue were glued it would be no good, but I’m always very careful that the wood should not be constrained, and that any addition is of the same wood, with the grain running in the same direction’.