Man Reading

1851

Medium	oil on panel
Dimensions	6 13/16 x 5 1/8 in. (17.3 x 13 cm)
Object Number	1955.812
Acquisition	Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status	Off View

Image Caption

Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier, Man Reading, 1851, oil on panel. Clark Art Institute, 1955.812

Select Bibliography

Galerie Georges Petit. Exposition Meissonier. Paris: Galerie Georges Petit, 1884. Paris: Galerie Georges Petit.. Exposition Meissonier.. March 1893.. Taft Museum, Cincinnati.. Cavaliers and Cardinals: 19th-Century French Anecdotal Painting. June 25-Aug. 16, 1992; Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D. C. Sept. 19-Nov. 15, 1992; Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, N.Y., Nov. 21, 1992-Jan. 17, 1993. Cat. by Eric M. Zafran. Vallery C. O. Gréard.. Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier: Ses souvenirs--ses entretiens.. Paris: Librairie Hachette.. 1897.. Isabelle Errera.. Répertoire des Peintures Datées.. Brussels: G. van Oest.. 1920.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012.

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EUROPEAN PAINTINGS CATALOGUE ENTRY

Provenance

Possibly Baron Adolphe de Rothschild, sold to Goupil, 17 Feb. 1881; [possibly Goupil, Paris, sold to Secrétan, 18 Feb. 1881];¹ Ernest Secrétan, Paris (possibly 1881–89, his sale, Galerie Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris, 1 July 1889, no. 52, ill., as Le Liseur blanc); [Galerie Charles Sedelmeyer, sold to Boussod, Valadon, 8 Oct. 1889]; [Boussod, Valadon, Paris, sold to Dreux, 31 Oct. 1889];² Ernest Dreux, Paris (1889–1911, his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 5 Dec. 1911, no. 22, ill., as Un Liseur, sold to Le Roy); [E. Le Roy, Paris, sold to Boussod, Valadon, 7 Dec. 1911]; [Boussod, Valadon, Paris, 1911–12, sold to Descamps Scrive, 20 Dec. 1912];³ Descamps Scrive, Lille (from 1912); [Knoedler, New York, sold to Clark, 30 Mar. 1929, as The Reader]; Robert Sterling Clark (1929–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. 1. In the Goupil Stock Books, book 10, p. 10, no. 15155, there is a work by Meissonier titled Le Liseur that is listed as having been bought from Baron A. de Rothschild and sold to Secrétan. The seller may have been Adolphe de Rothschild, and although it is not identified in subsequent Goupil stock book entries, the work in question may well be the present painting. 2. See Goupil Stock Books, book 12, p. 122, no. 20088. 3. See Goupil Stock Books, book 15, p. 267, no. 30389.