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Young Man Playing the Cello
Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (French, 1815–1891)
Title
Young Man Playing the Cello
Artist
Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (French, 1815–1891)
Date
1841
Medium
oil on panel
Dimensions
14 × 10 1/2 in. (35.6 × 26.7 cm)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Bequest of Francis T.B. Martin
Object Number
1995.39
On View
On view
Provenance
M. Lascombes, Paris.
M. Gerson, Paris, until November 23, 1929;
Purchased from M. Gerson, through Count le Pic acting for Galerie Georges Petit, by Charles W. Martin (1863–1944), Omaha, November 23, 1929–August 29, 1934;
His gift to his nephew, Francis T. B. Martin (1904–1995), Omaha, August 29, 1938;
Bequeathed by Martin to Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, 1995.
Exhibition History
Salon, Paris, 1842, as Jeune homme jouant de la basse.
Exposition Meissonier, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May–July 1884, no. 4, lent by Edouard H. Krafft.
Exposition Meissonier, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, March 1893, no. 1000, lent by Edouard H. Krafft.
The Two Sides of the Medal: French Painting from Gérôme to Gauguin, Detroit Institute of Arts, September 28–November 6, 1954, no. 26.
Prints and the Art of Reproduction, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, November 11, 2000–February 18, 2001.
Titian to Monet: European Paintings from Joslyn Art Museum, Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA, October 14, 2022–January 8, 2023.
Published References
Art Journal (Christmas 1842): 27, (repro.)
John W. Mollet, Meissonier (London: Sampson low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1882), 27, as Player on the Violoncello.
Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, vol. 3 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1886), 235, 236.
Grands peintres française et étrangers: ouvrage d’art, vol. 7, E. Meissonier (Paris: Goupil & Cie, 1886), 295.
Great Modern Painters (Paris: Goupil & Cie, 1886), 295.
Marius Chaumelin, Portraits d’Artistes: E. Meissonier (Paris: C. Marpon et E. Flammarion, 1887), 39.
C. H. Stranahan, A History of French painting from its earliest to its latest practice: including an account of the French academy of painting, its salons, schools of instruction and regulations (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1888), 343–44.
Gustave Larroumet and Philippe Burty, Meissonier (Pars: Ludovic Baschet, 1893), 66.
Exposition Meissonier, exh. cat. (Paris: Galerie Georges Petite, 1893), 252, no. 1000.
Octave Gréard, Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, ses souvenirs, ses entertainments (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1897), 30, 154, 159, 390, (repro.), as Jouer de contrebasse and Le violoncelliste.
Octave Gréard, Meissonier, His Life and His Art, trans. Mary Loyd and Florence Simmonds (New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1897), 30, 160, 162, 365, 394, (repro.), as The Violoncelliste and Young Man Playing the Violoncello.
Léonce Bénédite, Meissonier (Paris: Librairie Renouard, n.d.), 24, as Jeune homme jouant de las basse.
Masters in Art: Meissonier (Boston: Bates & Guild Co., 1904), 25.
Encyclopedia Brittanica XVIII (Cambridge: 1910), 85, as Young man playing cello.
Emmanuel Bénézit, Dictionaire des peintres, sculptures, dessinateurs et graveurs, vol. 3 (Paris: E. Grund, 1926), 248.
The Two Sides of the Medal: French Painting from Gérôme to Gauguin, exh. cat. (Detroit: Detroit Insitute of Arts, 1954), 8, 22, (repro.).
Ernest Meissonier, Rétrospective, exh. cat. (Lyon: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, 1993), 104, (repro.).
Marc J. Gottlieb, The Plight of Emulation: Ernest Meissonier and French Salon Painting (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999), 12, 66, 67, 70, (repro.), as The Cellist.
Constance Cain Hungerford, Ernest Meissonier: Master in His Genre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), cover, 35–37, 38, 41, 107, 224, (repro.).
Taylor J. Acosta, European Paintings and Sculpture from Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha: Joslyn Art Museum, 2020), 140–41, (repro.).
