Oil On Wooden Panel "flag Bearer Of The Flemish Civic Guard"

PAINTING / OIL ON WOODEN PANEL "FLAG BEARER OF THE FLEMISH CIVIL GUARD" AFTER MEISSONIER 19th CENTURY Ernest Meissonier, born February 21, 1815 in Lyon and died January 31, 1891 in Paris (17th arrondissement)1, is a French painter and sculptor, specialized in historical military painting and genre scenes. A painter very attentive to authentic detail, he is part of the academic movement, which predominates in the plastic arts under the Second Empire. Covered in honors, he sits on the Academy of Fine Arts and chairs many national and international juries. Even though Marcel Proust during his adolescence, Guy de Maupassant and Robert Louis Stevenson2 considered him their favourite painter, and although he was greatly appreciated by Eugène Delacroix3 and then admired by Vincent van Gogh4, some critics, mainly posthumous, judged his work to be devoid of spontaneity and life. The painter's reputation therefore went through a purgatory, and we often quote the fierce judgement of Édouard Manet about one of his battle paintings: "Everything is made of steel, except the breastplates", or the nickname "giant of dwarves" which Edgar Degas gave him5,6,7: by this he meant that Meissonier was the most notable of painters like Gervex, Carolus-Duran, Detaille…8, whom 20th century modernist critics would call "pompiers". dim: 34cm x 24.5cm for the whole 25.5cm x 16cm for the painting