Bridge at Poissy (Pêcheurs à ligne) (1881): Art, History and Details

Bridge at Poissy (Pêcheurs à ligne) (1881) 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:

This surprising, naturalist painting by the renowned French academic-realist Ernst Meissonier depicts a man and a woman in small boat on the river Seine at Poissy, a small town about 15 miles northeast of Paris. The fashionably dressed figures, presumably members of the new urban class at leisure, are fishing in the shade of several trees on the bank. The man wears straw hat, his shirt sleeves casually rolled up, while the woman stands in the boat extending her pole over the water.

Object facts

• Title: Bridge at Poissy (Pêcheurs à ligne)
• Date: 1881
• Creator attribution: Ernest Meissonier (French, 1815–1891)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on board
• Dimensions: Unframed: 33.7 x 56.3 cm (13 1/4 x 22 3/16 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2022.432

A detail from the museum

Renowned British art critic John Ruskin marveled at Meissonier’s ability to paint minute detail after examining his paintings at length with a magnifying glass.

Collection credit

Bequest of Muriel Butkin

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.