‘The Print Collector‘. Chromolithograph after the original oil painting by Jean Louise Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891)
Published by Virtue & Co., London circa 1920. Number 93 of a series featuring works held in the Wallace Collection.
Coloured print attached to backing sheet with original tissue guard. Good condition for age
Measures: Sheet 28 cms by 40 cms. Image 18 cms by 24 cms
Ernest Meissonier was a painter, etcher, lithographer, sculptor and illustrator, who was considered one of the most prominent genre and military painters in 19th Century France. The original painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1850-1. The figures wear mid-eighteenth century costume, though several of the pictures on the back wall are by Meissonier himself (including a self-portrait above the visitor’s head), and the setting was identified by a contemporary as the artist’s Paris studio on the Quai Bourbon. It has been described as a nostalgic invocation of refined French life before the Revolution.