A Painter (1855): Art, History and Details

A Painter (1855) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Ernest Meissonier (French, 1815–1891).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Meissonier often depicted artists and musicians of the 1600s and 1700s engaged in their work. This artist is busy painting a small canvas depicting a nymph and satyr. The artist’s 18th-century costume—nearly 100 years out of date at the time of the painting’s creation—transforms the scene into a charming historical fiction. Meissonier exhibited the painting at the Paris Salon of 1857.

Object facts

• Title: A Painter
• Date: 1855
• Creator attribution: Ernest Meissonier (French, 1815–1891)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on mahogany
• Dimensions: Framed: 39 x 33.5 x 6.5 cm (15 3/8 x 13 3/16 x 2 9/16 in.); Unframed: 27 x 21.1 cm (10 5/8 x 8 5/16 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1982.247

A detail from the museum

The fashionable attire worn by the subject of this painting is from the previous century. In order to ensure authenticity in his paintings, Meissionier collected accessories from local costume markets to assemble a “work library.”

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. Noah L. Butkin

Further reading listed by the museum

• Auvray, Louis. Exposition des Beaux Arts Salon 1859 par Louis Auvray. Paris: Emile Allard, 1857.
• Camp, M. de. Le Salon de 1857: Peinture, Sculpture. Paris: Librairie Nouvelle, 1857.
• Burty, Philippe. "Les Oeuvres de M. Meissonier et les Photographies de M. Bingham." Gazette des Beaux-arts 20 (1866):78-87.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.