1889
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Joan of Arc is a 1889 by Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see Joan of Arc on a white horse, no helmet, staring straight ahead with calm focus. This sketch was meant for a huge mural that never got painted. Meissonier won the job in 1874 but kept putting it off. The quiet confidence in Joan’s face feels like a study in stillness before battle. To see how other artists painted her, look up *France, 19th century*.
This drawing is a rare study relating to Ernest Meissonier's never-realized mural for the Pantheon in Paris. After seeking and receiving the commission in 1874, Meisonnier procrastinated on the project for many years. Here, the French heroine Joan of Arc appears at center, without a helmet, on a bare white horse, staring ahead with steadfast calm. The figure of Joan in this drawing appears to correspond to the subject in a now-lost design for the complete painting, which Meissonier presented in 1889.
Ernest Meisonnier found the original subject proposed for his Pantheon mural commission—Saint Geneviève—to be uninspiring and instead proposed an allegorical Triumph of France featuring Joan of Arc alongside Charlemagne and Napoleon Bonaparte, among others.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier was a French academic painter and sculptor. He became famous for his depictions of Napoleon and his military sieges and manoeuvres in paintings acclaimed both for the artist's mastery of…
See the richer artist page
![Figures on Horseback [verso]](https://pub-3a17a9933ad74fb28aa30fa758592f23.r2.dev/artworks/014ce85ac0e4d9d4/thumb.webp)
