MEISSONIER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9082, 16 June 1888, Page 3 (Supplement)

MEISSONIER.

THE HOME OF A GREAT PAINTER. MBIBSONIBR has a very bizarre studio at 131, Boulevard Maleshcrbos. Tho architecture of his entire house is similar to that introduced into Spain by the Moors. The courtyard is framed by elevated colonnades, dreary in the daytime, but on a bright, starry evening most poetical. On tho left is a corridor, with staircase leading to the studio, which is preceded by an immense salon decorated with raro works of art. In tho sombre light of the "cathedral," for that Is the name given to his studio, seated noar a largo window beside a little eaeel I found the mailre. Meissonier is very small, but his head is large and his long white beard falls in silken waves upon his breast. His voice is very loud and every word is accentuated, but the artist is dissatisfied with the world and takes no trouble to hide his discontent. His great sorrow seems to be that he has enriched others and not himself. He looks around at his princely dwelling, with its rare old Dutch and Venetian lanterns, ite carved oaken staircase, its marvellous tapestries, its wonders brought from China and Japan, and at last exclaims, "I am not rich ; but certainly lam not poor. I have a home, but those who sign masterpieces should be lodged aa well as those who buy them." Meissonier is undertaking a great work, thedecoration of the Pantheon ceiling —a work that does not require his fine touches, the microscopic minuteness that is his great talent. The largest water-colonr he has ever painted is his modification of " 1807," an immense military panorama, in which Napoleon reviews the troops dashing past him. Meissonier is more than seventy years old, but his big brown eyes eeom piercing as ever. I do not think he coneiders nis talent in any way lessened, although he continually speaks of " my approaching dissolution."