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| Ernest Meissonier, Self Portrait |
The guard was Mrs. J. W. Mackay, California. After seeing the almost finished portrait, it rejected [Edit: she asked for it to be finished to her satisfaction.] A bill was sent, and at first her husband refused to pay for it. The price was huge for 1884 estimated between ten and twenty-five thousand dollars. Meissonier responded by promising to keep the paint and he put on the show, where the audience is the judge.
In his view, he had just painted a picture that was too precise. In his view, he had made his rough look, and composed like a painted doll
A sympathetic account in child care said: .
"it seems that after Meissonier had painted the portrait, Mrs. Mackay criticized a bit and wanted just a little over. It was not finished and when she entered the country and she wrote she would come to him whenever he wanted to finish. "
" he never said a word, but ended up in the hands of a model of a large coarse woman with hands ugly, and made the cheeks and lips and painted powder appallingly, and left the yellow neck, just because he was so angry that she dares to criticize such a great teacher like himself. "
"now, Ms. Mackay thought, rightly I think, that it must have been the model for his own portrait, and it may require at least a slight resemblance, especially that it would have to pay $ 15,000 for the image. "
" Without informing Mackay to his intentions or ask his consent, he simply sent the picture to the exhibition, where his friends the saw and told him. She wrote and asked for the image, and at the end of the exhibition, he was sent with a bill. "
" Mr. Mackay has caused he wanted to make a fuss about it, but his friends persuaded him to pay and nothing more on this subject say. This he did, and threw the picture in the fire. But the same day, Mr. Mackay left for America's newspapers came out with the story, abusing Ms. Mackay, and French artists will meet and have a meeting with indignation that immortalized canvas by Meissonier be burned by an American vulgar ".
debate on who was in the right was taken up in all the newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic. A writer at the beginning of the incident said that "Meissonier, by the height of his manners, his artistic independence, and above all by his success unforgivable, were sowing dragons teeth for half a century. And now armed enemies arise and sided with the wife of California They did an international episode. less excuse involved the warring nations in days agone .... the tide of prosperity began Meissonier to decline: the buyers kept out; those who had canceled commissions "
Sources :.
Little Journeys to the Eminent homes Painters, 1899, page 0
Journal article Alta California 1884 Mackay and Meissonier, the fact of the quarrel
Edit :. Another article in the Daily Alta California, with more on the story (Thanks, Neil Miley)
