Mounted Hussar

Ernest Meissonier

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Meissonier's Friedland, 1807 (acc. no. 87.20.11), a broad canvas celebrating a Napoleonic victory as envisioned by a firm adherent of the Second Empire, is arguably the most important academic painting of the second half of the nineteenth century in the Museum's collection. Begun in the mid-1850s, it was completed only in 1875. One reason for the long delay was Meissonier's extraordinary preparatory research. The work was preceded by many drawings, oil sketches, and, for the primary horsemen, several wax models, of which this may be the only one to survive. The medium is perishable by nature. A wire armature was affixed to a small piece of wood, and warm pellets of wax were pressed onto it to form the figures. In a photo of Meissonier's atelier, this very model is clamped to his modeling stand. He could thus view it from any angle and sketch from it. That our hussar and his mount appear to the left and more frontally positioned in Meissonier's grandly orchestrated chef d'oeuvre contributes to the overall photo- graphic semblance of frozen movement

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art