Ernest Meissonier's "A Painter"

This is a painting I have always enjoyed visiting at the Cleveland Museum of Art.  It is very small, but exquisitely painted with great sensitivity and subtlety.  I particularly enjoy the film of dust that covers the polished wood surface of the chair this painter is sitting on.  As a painter myself I find historically imagery of other painters interesting—I can see what tools and materials they used and how they set up their studios.