Description"The Sign Painter" is a photogravure print by Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (English, b. 1813), a reproduction of the original painting by Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier. The original painting that this print was taken from was exhibited in Paris in 1872, and later bequested to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by in 1886. A photogravure print is a means of reproducing a photograph in large editions through the use of copper plates that are acid-etched directly from an original silver print; the etched areas then hold differing amounts of ink in order to correspond to the tones of the original print.