The Brawl

I’ve been reading “The Judgement of Paris” by Ross King for the last couple of months (I’m a slow reader), and it is the most amazing book I’ve ever read. It is an insight to life in Paris in the 1880’s, and everything that happened during that decade that eventually lead to Impressionism. I love reading details about artists gathering at cafes to plan riots, how they lived and who their models were, how they planned their artwork and how harshly they were criticized on work we now consider masterpieces. One of my favorite details was this one: “The Brawl”, by Ernest Meissonier was his most famous painting. It was of 2 men dressed as rich people from the 17th century fighting outside of a bar. – Meisonnier was super obsessed with the past. He hated train stations and modern arquitecture – Anyhow, this painting won the gold medal in the Exposition Universelle in Paris, and Napoleon III bought it from Meisonnier at $25,000 francs (which are supposed to be like $120,000usd in modern times), and gave it as a gift to Queen Victoria. It was the most expensive painting at the time, and it is now part of the Royal Collection Trust