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Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier
1815-1891
A Gentleman in Eighteenth-Century Dress Seated on a Bench with a Staff in His Hand; Study for "An Account of the Siege of Bergen op Zoom"
10 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches (267 x 216 mm)
Graphite, opaque white watercolor on laid paper.
2022.340
Gift of Karen B. Cohen.
Notes
Before becoming Napoleon's official painter of military exploits, Meissonier produced genre scenes with figures dressed in eighteenth-century costume. This is one of two large-scale studies in the Cohen gift preparatory for a miniature-scale painted composition depicting two men discussing the Siege of Bergen op Zoom, a 1747 maneuver in which the French army captured the Dutch town. This genre scene, for a painting in oil on wood only two inches in diameter, hints at Meissonierʼs ultimate ambition as a military painter. The location of the painting is unknown, but the composition is known through an engraved reproduction in a volume from 1889 (Catalogue of the Celebrated Collection of Paintings . . . Formed by Mr. E Secrétan . . ., Paris, 1889, no. 56).
Associated names
Cohen, Karen B., former owner.
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Catalog link
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