Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier

Ernest Meissonier painted small pictures with astonishing precision. His favourite subjects were men in 17th and 18th century costume reading, smoking, playing chess or cards, and soldiers of the Napoleonic wars, every button and bridle painted with care.

Born in Lyon, he became one of the most successful artists of Second Empire France, and his paintings sold for enormous sums. He was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1861 and received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour in 1889. He studied horses obsessively to paint them accurately in motion. His best known painting, 1814, The Campaign of France, showing Napoleon leading his staff through the mud, is in the Musée d’Orsay. The Wallace Collection in London holds fifteen of his works.

In Chess Players and At the Relay Station, look at how much detail he fits into a small space, and how quietly the figures are absorbed in what they are doing.