Cleveland Museum of Art

Bridge at Poissy (Pêcheurs à ligne)

Ernest MeissonierLinkedCulture matchlcp-6da86b6e9bce

Date

1881

Medium

oil on board

Culture

France, 19th century

Department

Modern European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Object ID

84745

This surprising, naturalist painting by the renowned French academic-realist Ernst Meissonier depicts a man and a woman in small boat on the river Seine at Poissy, a small town about 15 miles northeast of Paris. The fashionably dressed figures, presumably members of the new urban class at leisure, are fishing in the shade of several trees on the bank. The man wears straw hat, his shirt sleeves casually rolled up, while the woman stands in the boat extending her pole over the water. Renowned British art critic John Ruskin marveled at Meissonier’s ability to paint minute detail after examining his paintings at length with a magnifying glass.

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