Ambroise Vollard: Ernest Meissonier

"Napolean's Retreat from Russia" by Ernest Meissonier

A customer had just asked if an unsigned painting he had recently purchased might be by the famous artist Meissonier. What better way to tell, than ask the painter himself? Vollard describes their trip to his studio:

"On arriving at Meissonier's, we were asked to wait. On an easel there was an almost finished painting; and underneath it hung a great magnifying glass as though inviting the visitor to examine the fineness of the work. My attention was soon attracted by the strange task which was being performed in a corner of the studio by one of the Master's pupils. Armed with a rake like a croupier's, he was engaged in leveling, on the floor, a layer of sparkling white powder that looked like boracic acid.

'I'm preparing,' he said, 'the field of battle that M. Meissonier is about to paint.' He opened a box and took out guns, little trees, ammunition wagons, soldiers and horses, that he ranged in battle formation in the frosted square. Taking a spray, he pressed the rubber bulb and projected a cloud of liquid gum over the whole of the little army, which he dusted afterwards with a powder of a duller white. 

Meissonier came in: 'Brrrr!' he said, casting a glance at the work of his assistant, 'what a fine winter landscape! It almost makes my fingers ache... Ah! The brutes!' Two big flies, fascinated by all this white, had settled on one of the cannons. From a little table Meissonier took a sort of revolver. He aimed at the insects and fired. A chemical odor diffused itself.

'When I painted my 'Retreat from Russia,' instead of boracic acid I used caster sugar. What an effect of snow I obtained! But it attracted the bees from a neighbouring hive. So I replaced the sugar with flour. And then the mice came and ravaged my battlefield, and I had to finish my picture from imagination!'

In response to whether or not the gentleman's painting was by him, he said: 'I congratulate you! You've got hold of a very good thing. It is actually one of the best imitations of a Meissonier that I have seen. Just a little something more, and I should be taken in myself!'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Recollection of a Picture Dealer" by Ambroise Vollard.)