Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier

Le Duc de Narbonne
Maurice Sabourdin (thence by descent and sold, Sotheby's, New York, October 31, 2000, lot 88, illustrated)
Acquired at the above sale

Paris, Salon, 1851, no. 2169 (as Le dimanche)
Paris, Exposition Universelle, 1855, no. 5057 (as Le dimanche, les joueurs de tonneau)
Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Meissonier, 1884, no. 8 
Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Vingt peintres du XIXème siècle, May 1910

Emile Bellier de la Chavignerie and Louis Auvray, Dictionnaire des artistes de l'école française, Paris, 1885, vol. II, p. 65
V. C. O. Gréard, Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, Paris, 1897, p. 391
Catalogue de l'exposition Jean-Louis-Ernst Meissonier, Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, March 25-June 27, 1993, p. 33
Constance Cain Hungerford, Ernest Meissonier: Master in his Genre, New York, 1999, p. 70, 224-5, 246, no. 7

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work is in beautiful condition. The panel is flat and the paint layer is clean. The work should be hung in its current condition. Under ultraviolet light, retouching can be seen on the top edge and down the left side addressing some frame abrasion, but the picture proper is essentially in perfect condition.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Long held hidden in the collection of the Duc de Narbonne, Sunday in Poissy is the earliest example of an ambitious expansion in Meissonier’s repertory. Throughout the Second Empire, the artist’s reputation had been made on his genre paintings, vignettes from bourgeois life: reading, playing music, appreciating art, or, as in the present work, playing and observing the pitching game tonneau on a leisurely Sunday, while women serve refreshments, and men chat against the wall of a public house and throw boules.  While Meissonier’s subjects were often set indoors, compositions like Jouers de boules of 1848, set in the gardens of Versailles, and Le dimanche allowed him to explore his interest in landscape painting (Hungerford, p. 70).  Brilliant sunshine casts the long shadow of a player ready to throw a ring, while trees and a vine-covered pergola offer cool shade to the assembled crowd. Visible on the right of the composition is the tower of the church across from the property Meissonier had acquired in Poissy in 1846. 

While the artist’s earlier works had focused on one or a few figures in intimate spaces, Sunday in Poissy includes an extraordinary number of figures painted on a small scale.  So astonishing was the effect that when exhibited at the Salon of 1851, one of the critics was compelled to count each figure, resulting accurately at twenty-six (not counting the assembled roosters, chickens, and dog lazing in the sun).  Men waiting their turn at play have thrown their coats over a bench and, with sleeves pulled up, stand in postures that suggest their confident appraisal of the competition.  The intricate composition was prepared in a series of drawings with at least four surviving examples held by the Louvre. Such study likely informed another hallmark of Meissonier’s production: tiny yet miraculously exact still-life details, such as the sparkling, near-empty wine glasses on the table.

Meissonier celebrates the bourgeois leisure that would be identified with the Impressionists decades later, but sets the scene in the pre-revolutionary eighteenth century, a period viewed with romantic nostalgia by his contemporary audience. Artists such as Édouard Manet would revisit themes explored by Meissonier (Hungerford, p. 4). The subject is not a dry historical subject but an easily relatable moment from daily life, vivified by the array of specific postures and poses that convey each figure’s attitude and behavior (Hungerford, p. 74).  Indeed, the artist believed in the importance of working from first-hand observation.  Models were an important source of study, and he allowed his sitters to assume positions that felt natural to them, though the practice admittedly allowed modern life to bleed into the past.  As Meissonier explained, “you will scarcely ever, in an old picture, see people cross-legged as you constantly do in modern ones” (as quoted in Hungerford, p. 78). Vincent Van Gogh wrote of his appreciation of the artist's ability to communicate a subject's inner thoughts in posture and pose (Hungerford, p. 4).

Works like Sunday in Poissy earned Meissonier international fame, wealth, and a lasting cultural influence. Outside of critical accolades and generous commissions, the artist’s renown is proven by his frequent appearance in late nineteenth century popular literature, including Guy de Maupassant’s short story, aptly titled Le dimanche d’un bourgeois de Paris, in which his Monsieur Patissot refuses an offer to go boating in order to visit Meissonier himself, a true “celebrity.”  

Please note the present work is offered with both its original gilded, ornamented frame and an alternate ebonized frame.  Images of each frame are available from the department on request.