Bachelier, cheval de l’artiste

The artist’s own horse Bachelier stands in the dim light of its stable, its coat warm against the shadowed stall — an intimate animal study in which the painter’s famous exactitude is turned from the battlefield to his own horse. Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, celebrated in his day for the obsessive accuracy of his military pictures, painted this study in 1871, recording the horse with the same patient fidelity he brought to the smallest cuirass or harness detail. The painting is held in the Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris.