Meissonier, Jean

ma-so-ne-a', Jean (1815-1891), a celebrated French painter. He was born at Lyons and died at Paris. His specialty was historical paintings. His favorite subjects were military pictures, representing guards, soldiers playing cards or drinking, and the like. Some of his paintings hang in the Louvre. The most celebrated of all his pictures are a set of four, known as the Napoleon Cycle. One of them, called 1807, is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It was purchased in 1887 at a cost of $66,000. See Corot; Millais; Bonheur