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Today's Featured Biography
Meissonier
 Among the many beautiful paintings collected in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York, there is one that always attracts a crowd, on the free-days and holidays when the general public finds admission. This is the picture called simply, "Friedland: 1807," and representing the soldiers of Napoleon saluting the emperor at the battle of Friedland. It was painted by Jean Louis Meissonier for the late A. T. Stewart, of New York, who paid for it what seemed a very large sum, $60,000; but when Mr. Stewart died, and his pictures were sold at auction, this painting brought the still larger sum of $66,000, showing that a great many people admired the work, and were willing to pay a good price for it. The picture was bought by Judge Hilton, of New York, and was presented by him to the Metropolitan Museum as a memorial of the long friendship that had existed between himself and Mr. Stewart. No doubt the facts of the high price paid for the picture, and that a gift of such value should be made to the Museum, have caused a great many people to look at the painting with more interest than they would, had the circumstances been less uncommon. But a great many more people find this picture interesting for its own sake; they are moved rather by the spirited way in which it tells its story, and find their curiosity excited by the studious accuracy shown by the artist in the painting of every detail.
The scene of the action is a field that has been planted with grain which now l...
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