Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 85, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1901 — Meissonier and the Rich Man. [ARTICLE]

Meissonier and the Rich Man.

One of the good stories about the .famous painter, Meissonler, is In regard to his experience with a “new rich’’ gentleman who had erected a private theater at his chateau. Meissonler was just then at the height of his fame, and when spending months painting pictures and selling them for about two hundred dollars a square inch. The rich man conceived the brilliant idea that what his theater most needed was a drop curtain painted by the famous Melssonier. So he went to the artist’s studio and proposed the matter to him. “How large is the curtain to be?” asked the great painter. “It will be thirty feet high and thirty-five feet wide,” was the reply. “My friend,” said Meissonler, blandly, “it will take me twenty years to paint such a curtain, and it will cost you six million dollars.” This bargain was not completed.