French Campaign, 1814 (Meissonier)

French Campaign, 1814 (French: Campagne de France, 1814, alternative title: 1814) is an oil on wood painting by French painter Ernest Meissonier, created between 1860 and 1864. It is part of his Napoleonic cycle of paintings, with 1807, Friedland and The Morning of Castiglione (unfinished). It represents Napoleon and his military staff during the French Campaign of 1814. It is widely considered Meissonnier's most famous work, and its sale in 1890 reached a record price for a painting by a contemporary artist. It is now held at the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris.

Description
Napoleon and his staff are depicted in the snowy and muddy Champagne countryside, after the defeat at the Battle of Laon, in 9–10 March 1814, to the Prussian army. Napoleon rides is white horse, with a resigned expression. Besides the Emperor, are shown Michel Ney, Louis-Alexandre Berthier, Antoine Drouot, Charles de Flahaut and Gaspard Gourgaud. The painting atmosphere seems to predict Napoleon's upcoming defeat.

The painting is surprisingly small for a military subject. Charles Blanc wrote that Meissonier “paints greatly in small” scale. Indeed, the artist represents even smallest details such Napoleon's sprouting beard or the veins of the horses' legs.

Meissonier approach to this and other historical paintings of this time was similar as possible to an historian. He consulted a vast documentation and talked with several eyewitnesses to achieve the most possible accurate depiction.

Provenance
Exhibited at the Salon of 1864, the painting was purchased in 1866 by the banker Gustave Delahante for 85,000 francs. Sold by Delahante to an anonymous dealer in 1890 (known by his initials MB) for 500,000 francs, the dealer resold the painting to Alfred Chauchard for 850,000 francs, the highest price at the time for a painting by a living artist. Bequeathed by Chauchard to the Louvre, it entered its collections in 1909. In 1986, the work was assigned to the Musée d'Orsay, where its still held.