
Ernest Meissonier (1815–1891) became the most expensive living painter of his era through sheer obsession with detail. Born in Lyon, the son of a dye factory owner, he resisted the family business and won permission to study art at seventeen. He trained briefly under Léon Cogniet in Paris but was largely self-taught, spending countless hours studying seventeenth-century Dutch masters. His early genre scenes earned him the nickname "the French Metsu." The English critic John Ruskin examined his canvases under a magnifying glass, marveling at the precision.
Meissonier's fame rests on his Napoleonic military paintings. He conceived a cycle of five monumental canvases depicting pivotal moments in Napoleon's career, completing only two: 1807, Friedland and 1814, Campaign of France. To achieve accuracy, he built a miniature railway in his garden so he could observe horses galloping at eye level. 1807, Friedland sold for 380,000 francs in 1875, more than triple the record for any living artist. Along with Gérôme and Cabanel, Meissonier became one of the three most successful painters of the Second Empire. The Académie des Beaux-Arts elected him in 1861, and in 1890 he became the first president of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.
Meissonier's Academic Art style fell out of fashion after his death, dismissed as too polished and conservative. But his technical mastery remains undeniable. His works hang at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée d'Orsay, the Louvre, and the Wallace Collection in London.
14 paintings catalogued with museum locations

Ernest Meissonier
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Ernest Meissonier
Private Collection, Unknown

Ernest Meissonier
State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Ernest Meissonier
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg

Ernest Meissonier
Private Collection, Unknown

Ernest Meissonier
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Madrid

Ernest Meissonier
Château de Compiègne, Compiègne, Compiègne
Ernest Meissonier
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD, Baltimore

Ernest Meissonier
Wallace Collection, London

Ernest Meissonier
National Museum Cardiff, Cardiff, Cardiff

Ernest Meissonier
Private Collection, Unknown

Ernest Meissonier
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland

Ernest Meissonier
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Ernest Meissonier, 1875
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
11 museums display Meissonier's works. Click any museum to see visiting info and the specific works they hold.

Cleveland, United States
1 work on display



Unknown, Unknown
3 works on display

New York, USA
1 work on display

St. Petersburg, Russia
1 work on display


Paris, France
2 works on display

Madrid, Spain
1 work on display

London, United Kingdom
1 work on display

Hamburg, Germany
1 work on display
Baltimore, US
1 work on display

Compiègne, France
1 work on display

Cardiff, UK
1 work on display
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