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拍品專文
John Taylor Johnston, the first president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was so taken with the present work that he bought it for his personal collection describing it as 'a beauty by Meissionier being a squadron of horses with Marshal Saxe at their head'. (Baetjer, op. cit., p. 414). Indeed, scenes of military life comprised an important part of Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier's oeuvre, and his subjects were most often historical re-creations from the Revolutionary and Empire periods.
The compositional format of the present work is derived from Meissonier's own 1814, The Campaign of France of 1864 (Musée d'Orsay, Paris). Completed a short two years later, this panel, smaller in size, features Maurice, Comte de Saxe on patrol in the French countryside with his troops. The son of Augustus II Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, Maurice was a roguish 18th Century military leader known for his romantic liaison with actress Adriana Lecouvrer, the great tragedienne of 18th Century France. According to older sources, this scene represents Marshal Saxe and his troops riding to battle at Fontenoy in 1745, where they would achieve their greatest military triumph.
Meissonier's technique is characterized by meticulous renderings of costumes and accessories that recall the painterly precision of the Dutch and Flemish masters Gabriel Metsu and Gerard ter Borch whom the artist greatly admired. For example, the paint is applied with the vivacity of an oil sketch, yet the attentiveness to detail in the ornaments of the soldiers' jackets, hats, and even lapels, combined with the expressiveness of their gestures and the surrounding landscape gives the work a highly finished quality.
The compositional format of the present work is derived from Meissonier's own 1814, The Campaign of France of 1864 (Musée d'Orsay, Paris). Completed a short two years later, this panel, smaller in size, features Maurice, Comte de Saxe on patrol in the French countryside with his troops. The son of Augustus II Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, Maurice was a roguish 18th Century military leader known for his romantic liaison with actress Adriana Lecouvrer, the great tragedienne of 18th Century France. According to older sources, this scene represents Marshal Saxe and his troops riding to battle at Fontenoy in 1745, where they would achieve their greatest military triumph.
Meissonier's technique is characterized by meticulous renderings of costumes and accessories that recall the painterly precision of the Dutch and Flemish masters Gabriel Metsu and Gerard ter Borch whom the artist greatly admired. For example, the paint is applied with the vivacity of an oil sketch, yet the attentiveness to detail in the ornaments of the soldiers' jackets, hats, and even lapels, combined with the expressiveness of their gestures and the surrounding landscape gives the work a highly finished quality.