Meynier

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right: Ch. Meynier 1795 and inscribed on the stretcher: Meynier Milon de Crotone.

43.9 x 35 cms. (17 ¼ x 13 ¾ in.)

LITERATURE: I. Mayer-Michalon, Charles Meynier, 1763-1832, Paris 2008, cat. P26bis, ill.

Charles Meynier was one of François-André Vincent’s favourite pupils; places in Vincent’s studio, along with those of David and Regnault, was greatly desired and Vincent entered as an apprentice at the age of 18. As Jean-Pierre Cuzin writes in his preface to the recent monograph, there are a number of Meyniers – meaning in style and purpose. Initially painting in an extremely chiseled manner, showing homage to the Italian Renaissance and immersion in the Neoclassical precision current at the time, after a few years, Meynier emerged as a narrative painter, producing flamboyant epics of imperial battles. By his mid career, he had become an extremely successful painter of decorative schemes, able to work fast and with an excellent sense of design. For this talent, David wrote rather scathingly, ‘and if one cut off his head, he would still paint..’

Cuzin describes Meynier as also being capable of poetic renditions of mythological subjects and antique allegories, painted with an eloquence in line with the work of Prud’hon, Guérin and Girodet. Cuzin ends by declaring that Meynier’s particular virtuosity as a draughtsman was unique amongst his compatriots and instead invites comparison with the work of the Italians, Felice Giani, Bartolommeo Pinelli and Tommaso Mindardi.

This excellently preserved oil sketch is preparatory for Meynier’s large-scale painting (roughly 2.5 x 2 metres), now lost, which he entered for the Salon of 1796¹. The picture was conceived as a pendant to one of Androcles, also now lost: Milo, an athelete and Olympian champion attempted to test his strength by pulling apart a tree but instead his hand became trapped and he was unable to save himself when a lion attacked; Androcles was a runaway slave who pulled a thorn out of a lion’s paw, thus the two paintings were complementary. In ancient sources, Milo, seen as a fable of pride, is attacked by wolves but Meynier presumably chose the lion to create symmetry with the pendant painting. The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Montreal has a larger modello for the composition and a related drawing showing Milo attacked by wolves, is in the Musée Fabre, Montpellier¹. The Montreal painting is also dated 1795 and must be pre-dated by the present oil-sketch. As Isabelle Mayer-Michalon points out, the survival of the this study, which is followed exactly by the modello, indicates the considerable work Meynier undertook for the finished work, of which he was clearly proud enough to enter it for the Salon.

1. See I. Mayer-Michalon, op. cit, under list of events: 1797, 22 Octobre (1 brumaire an VI)/ Il expose au Salon de l’Elysée Milon de Croton voulait essayer sa force est surpris et dévoré par un lion. Androcles… etc.’

2. See I. Mayer-Michalon, op. cit., p.29, cat.P.26 (61 x 50.5cms). Signed and dated: ch. Meynier. F.1795. and p.185, D36.