The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

A Painter

A Painter

1855
(French, 1815–1891)
France, 19th century
oil on mahogany
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.)
Gift of Mrs. Noah L. Butkin 1982.247
Location: 220 19th Century European

Did You Know?

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.”

Description

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 The artist’s 18th-century costume—nearly 100 years out of date at the time of the painting’s creation—transforms the scene into a charming historical fiction.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.
  • 1861
    Countess Lehon [1808-1880], Paris, France, her sale, April 2-3,1861, lot 10, sold to Vente X . . . de Vienne
    1861-1871
    Vente X . . . de Vienne, 1861, (possibly Georg Plach [1818-1885], Vienna, Austria
    by 1871
    G. Simpson, by 1871
    1883-1884
    John Grant Morris [1811-1897], Allerton Priory, Liverpool, United Kingdom,1883, sold to Samuel P. Avery
    by 1884
    (Samuel P. Avery, New York, NY, by 1884, sold to William H. Vanderbilt)
    William H. Vanderbuilt [1821-1885], New York, NY, by descent to his son, George W. Vanderbuilt
    George W. Vanderbilt [1862-1914], New York, NY, by descent to Cornelius Vanderbilt III
    1919-1945
    Cornelius Vanderbilt III [1983-1942], New York, NY by descent to his widow, Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt III
    1945
    Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt III, his widow', [1870-1953], New York, NY, consigned to Parke-Bernet for sale
    1945
    (Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, NY, April 18-19, 1945, sold to Mrs. Derek Spence)
    1945-1976
    Mrs. Derek Spence [1905-1984], New York, NY, February 1976, consigned to Hammer Gallery
    1976
    (Hammer Gallery, New York, NY, July 1976, sold to Shepherd Gallery)
    1976
    (Shephard Gallery, New York, NY, July 1976, sold to Mr. and Mrs. Noah L. Butkin)
    1976-1982
    Mrs. Noah L. Butkin [1915-2008], Shaker Heights, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1982-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    Provenance Footnotes
    1 There are at least two sales at Drouot, 20 April and 1-2 May 1861, though neither catalogue lists a painting by Meissonier.
  • Auvray, Louis. Exposition des Beaux Arts Salon 1859 par Louis Auvray. Paris: Emile Allard, 1857. Mentioned: P. 49
    Camp, M. de. Le Salon de 1857: Peinture, Sculpture. Paris: Librairie Nouvelle, 1857. Mentioned: P. 54
    Burty, Philippe. "Les Oeuvres de M. Meissonier et les Photographies de M. Bingham." Gazette des Beaux-arts 20 (1866):78-87. Mentioned: P. 86
    Mollett, John W. Meissonier. New York, NY: Scribner and Welford, 1882.
    Shinn, Earl. Mr. Vanderbilt's House and Collection, Described by Edward Strahan [Pseud.]. Boston, MA: G. Barrie, 1883. Reproduced: p. 48, vol. 4
    Waters, Clara Erskine Clement, and Laurence Hutton. Artists of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works. A Handbook Containing Two Thousand and Fifty Biographical Sketches. Boston, MA: Ticknor, 1884. Reproduced: p. 209, vol. 2
    The Complete Works of E. Meissonier: With Biography. New York. NY: J.W. Bouton, 1884. Reproduced: pl.xxxviii
    Durand-Greville, E. "La Peinture aux Etats-Unis: Les Galeries Privees." Gazette des Beaux-arts 36 (1887): 250-255. Reproduced: P. 252
    Chaumelin, Marius. Portraits d'Artistes. Paris: C. Marpon et E. Flammarion, 1887. Mentioned: P. 43, no. 55
    Stranahan, Clara Cornelia (Harrison). A History of French Painting from Its Earliest to Its Latest Practice: Including an Account of the French Academy of Painting, Its Salons, Schools of Instruction and Regulations. London, United Kingdom: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1889.
    Gréard, Octave. Meissonier, His Life and His Art. New York, NY: A.C. Armstrong, 1897. Reproduced: p. 229
    Avery, Samuel Putnam, Madeleine Fidell-Beaufort, H. L. Kleinfield, and Jeanne K. Welcher. The Diaries, 1871-1882, of Samuel P. Avery, Art Dealer. New York, NY: Arno Press, 1979. Mentioned: p. 726-728; Reproduced: fig. 75
    Lee, Sherman E. " Annual Report for 1982." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art LXX, no. 6 (June, 1983): 230-232. Reproduced: p. 231
    Turner, Evan H. "Year in Review for 1983." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art LXXI no. 2 (February, 1984): 39-64. Reproduced: p. 61, fig. 19;
    Vanderbilt, William H. Collection of W.H. Vanderbilt, 640 Fifth Avenue. New York. 1884. Mentioned: P. 25, no. 41
    Patterson, Jerry E. The Vanderbilts. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1989. Mentioned: P. 105
    Placidi, Kathleen S. "Beyond Bootblacks: "The Boat Builder" and the Art of John George Brown." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77, no. 10 (1990): 366-82. Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 377-78 www.jstor.org
    Chong, Alan. European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993. Reproduced: P. 152
    Gotlieb, Marc. The Plight of Emulation: Ernest Meissonier and French Salon Painting. Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1996. Reproduced: p. 230, no. 53, fig. 38
    Becker, Edwin, and Elizabeth Prettejohn. Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1997. Reproduced: p. 94
    D'Argencourt, Louise and Roger Diederen. The Cleveland Museum of Art: Catalogue of Paintings, Part Four; European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999. Reproduced: p. 148
    Hungerford, Constance Cain, and Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier. Ernest Meissonier: Master in His Genre. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Reproduced: p. 67, fig. 28
    Antigüedad, Ma. Dolores, and Amaya Alzaga Ruiz. Colecciones, expolio, museos y mercado artístico en España en los siglos XVIII y XIX. Madrid, Spain: Editorial Universitaria Ramón Areces, 2011. Reproduced: p. 321, fig. 2
    David Pullins, review of Delicious Decadence. The Rediscovery of French Eighteenth-Century Painting in the Nineteenth Century, ed. by Guillaume Faroult, Monica Preti and Christoph Vogtherr. The Burlington Magazine 157, no. 1349 (August 2015): 550. Reproduced: P. 550, fig. 27
  • Ernest Meissonier: Rétrospective. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, 69001 Lyon, France (organizer) (March 25-June 27, 1993).
    The Year in Review for 1983. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 22-April 8, 1984).
    The Artist and the Studio in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (April 5 -August 13, 1978).
    Salon. Palais des Champs-Elysées, Paris, France (1857).
    International Exhibition. London, United Kingdom (1871).
    Metropolitan Museum, New York, NY (1902)
  • {{cite web|title=A Painter|url=false|author=Ernest Meissonier|year=1855|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1982.247