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Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier
French, 1815–1891
The Musician
1859
A man in an elaborate costume plays a theorbo, a type of lute, while seated at a heavy wooden table in a room hung with tapestries. These details indicate that the image is a period piece, inspired by the popularity of seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish genre paintings in nineteenth-century France. Meissonier’s small, meticulously painted works were prized for their attention to historical detail.
Medium
oil on panel
Dimensions
9 1/2 x 6 7/8 in. (24.1 x 17.5 cm)
Frame: 14 3/4 x 12 3/8 x 1 5/8 in. (37.5 x 31.4 x 4.1 cm)
Object Number
1955.810
Acquisition
Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status
On View
Image Caption
Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier, The Musician, 1859, oil on panel. Clark Art Institute, 1955.810
Select Bibliography
Terhune, Anne Gregory. Thomas Hovenden: His Life and Art. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2006.
Galerie Georges Petit. Exposition Meissonier. Paris: Galerie Georges Petit, 1884.
Paris: Galerie Georges Petit.. Exposition Meissonier.. March 1893..
Cunningham, Charles C., et al. The Elegant Academics: Chroniclers of 19th-Century Parisian Life. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: The Clark, 1974.
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.
Marius Chaumelin.. Portraits d'Artiste: Ernest Meissonier--Jules Breton.. Paris: C. Marpon et E. Flammarion.. 1887..
Vallery C. O. Gréard.. Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier: Ses souvenirs--ses entretiens.. Paris: Librairie Hachette.. 1897..
Hippolyte Mireur.. Dictionnaire des Ventes d'Art faites en France et à l'étranger pendant les XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, V.. Paris: Maison d'éditions d'oeuvres artistiques.. 1911..
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.
Constance J. C. Hungerford.. The Art of Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier: A Study of the Critical Years 1834-55. Ph.D. diss. University of California, Berkeley. 1977.. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms.. 1978..
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.
Prince Paul Demidoff, Paris and Florence (until 1864, his sale, Drouot, Paris, 25 May 1864, no. 10, as Gentilhomme faisant de la musique); Bocquet;¹ Laurent-Richard, Paris (until 1873, his sale, Drouot, Paris, 7 Apr. 1873, no. 37, ill., as Le joueur de guitare [print by P. Le Rat after the painting]); Baron Adolphe de Rothschild, Paris (by 1884, until at least 1893, d. 1900); Marshall Field, Chicago (d. 1906); [Wildenstein, Paris, sold to Boussod, Valadon, 8 June 1909]; [Boussod, Valadon, Paris, sold to Glaenzer, 8 June 1909];² [Eugene W. Glaenzer, New York, from 1909]; [Knoedler, New York, sold to Clark, 1 June 1922]; Robert Sterling Clark (1922–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.
1. The entry for this picture in the Laurent-Richard sale of 1873 states that it had been part of the Bocquet collection. It has been suggested that this refers to Edward Bocquet of Brompton, England, from whose collection several works were placed at auction at Christie’s London in 1863 and 1871, but this painting was not among those sold; further, Edward Bocquet died before 1863. It is unclear whether Bocquet or Demidoff was the first owner of the picture.
2. See Goupil Stock Books, book 15, p. 216, no. 29623.
