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VERNET, ANTOINE-CHARLES-HORACE. 



VERNET, HORACE. 



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it to his sketchbook. His grandson, the celebrated Horace Vernet, 

 painted an excellent picture of this scene, and exhibited it in 1816 in 

 the Louvre. In 1752 or 1753 Vernet was elected a member of the 

 French Academy of Arts ; his reception picture was a Seaport at 

 Sunset, which is now in the Louvre. In 1753 he was commissioned 

 by the government to paint pictures of the principal seaports of 

 France, of which he painted fifteen views ; an arduous task, which 

 occupied him nearly ten years, or twelve, according to the Catalogue 

 of the Louvre : but it contributed more to his fame than to his 

 fortune; for he was paid, including his travelling expenses, only 7500 

 francs each ; and the pictures are of large dimensions, measuring eight 

 French feet long by five high : they are now in the Louvre. He was 

 however in consequence of these works elected in 170C ono of the 

 council of the Academy, and Louis XV. gave him apartments in the 

 Louvre. From 1752, when he returned to France, until the year of 

 his death, 1789, Vernet painted upwards of 200 pictures, most of 

 which have been engraved. The best prints after him are by Balechou, 

 Lebas, Aliamet, and Flipart. He was without a rival in France, and 

 there was only one landscape painter in Europe who disputed the palm 

 with him : this was Richard Wilson, with whom Vernet had become 

 acquainted in Rome, and for whom he had a great esteem. They ex- 

 changed pictures, and Vernet kept Wilson's in his studio at Paris, and 

 he is said to have remarked to English connoisseurs who visited him, 

 that they had no occasion to come to him for pictures when they had 

 such a painter at home. Vernet's landscapes are good in almost every 

 respect, but he was most excellent perhaps in his management of light 

 and shade, and aerial perspective : his figures also are remarkably well 

 drawn, and he introduced a great number of them in some of his pieces ; 

 he excelled also in moonlight effects, and in representing water in any 

 state, but particularly when disturbed and boisterous. He was least 

 successful in shipping : he was deficient in a competent knowledge of 

 the rigging and construction of ships; and his colouring is forced 

 and artificial. Many of his best pictures are in the Louvre. In the 

 National Gallery are two paintings by him ' A Seaport, with Shipping,' 

 and ' The Castle of St. Angelo.' 



In 1826 the Athenaeum of Vaucluse determined upon giving a prize 

 for the best eulogy in verse upon Vernet : it was decided in favour of 

 M. Eignan, in 1827, in the presence of the son and grandson of the 

 painter, Carle and Horace Vernet, who, in gratitude to the city of 

 Avignon, each presented a picture to the museum of that place. Carle 

 Vernet's was a horae-race at Rome ; Horace's, his well-known picture 

 of Mazeppa. The Municipal council of Avignon, and the directors of 

 the museum, presented to the painters in return two large silver urns 

 embossed with two of their own designs respectively. 



VERNET, ANTOINE-CHARLES-HORACE, commonly called Carle 

 Vernet, a French historical, genre, and battle painter, was born at 

 Bordeaux, August 14th 1758, and was the pupil of his father, Claude 

 Joseph Vernet, the celebrated marine and landscape painter. He 

 studied also in the French Academy at Paris, where he gained the 

 second prize for painting when in his eighteenth year, and in 1782, six 

 years afterwards, he obtained the grand prize, and with it the privilege 

 of studying for a certain period in the French academy at Rome. 



In 1787 he was elected a member of the French Royal Academy of 

 Painting for a large picture of the Triumph of Paulus JEmilius, and 

 he was subsequently, after the remodelling of the academy, nominated 

 a member of the Institute of France. 



His principal works are : The large picture of the Battle of Marengo, 

 and a battle agaiust the Mamelukes, exhibited in 1804; the Morning 

 of the Battle of Austerlitz, with the Emperor giving orders to his 

 Marshals, and an equestrian portrait of Napoleon, in 1808 ; the Bom- 

 bardment of Madrid, the Battle of Rivoli, and another picture of the 

 Emperor, in 1810; John Sobieski forcing the Turks to raise the Siege of 

 Vienna, in 1683, exhibited in 181 9; the Taking of Pampelunainl824; 

 the Entrance of Napoleon into Milan ; and the Battle of Wagram. 



Carle Vernet has painted also an immense number of pictures of 

 small dimensions, chiefly of military subjects, but also many of the 

 chase, of scenes of familiar life, aud from the imagination. He was 

 also a celebrated painter of horses, and by some considered the best 

 of his time ; among his pictures are many small equestrian portraits. 

 In 1806 he was appointed painter to the Ddpot de la Guerre; and he 

 was made subsequently Chevalier of the orders of St. Michel, and of 

 the Ldgion d'Honneur. He died September 27, 1836. 



* VERNET, HORACE, is the son of Antoine-Charles (commonly 

 called Carle) Vernet, and was born on the 30th of Juno 1789, in the 

 Louvre, where his grandfather Claude-Joseph Vernet had an official 

 residence as painter to the king, and where his father also resided. 

 The state of anarchy through which Paris passed during his childhood 

 and early youth caused his education to be somewhat neglected and 

 irregular ; but his father instructed him in art, for which he early 

 evinced the hereditary fondness and talent. Art was however during 

 those years far from a lucrative profession, and Carle Vernet had little 

 ability to indulge his son in the luxurious appliances of study. While 

 yet a boy he was compelled to use his pencil as a means of support, 

 and he made drawings for ladies' fashions, bill-heads, and indeed all 

 kinds of designs for booksellers and others. He thus acquired the 

 astonishing facility in drawing every kind of object which has in his 

 mature years enabled him to furnish paintings, sketches, and drawings 

 with an almost unparalleled profusion. 



In deference to the wishes of his father, Horace was a competitor 

 for the prize of the travelling pension to Rome given by the Academie 

 des Beaux Arts, but was unsuccessful. He consoled himself with a 

 wife though only twenty and throwing off the trammels of pupil- 

 age, boldly opened his atelier; and, in 1809, sent a picture to the 

 Exposition. At this time the Classic school, of which David was the 

 head and representative, was in the undisputed ascendant, and what- 

 ever were the subjects chosen by French painters, a certain conven- 

 tional ' classic ' character was regarded as indispensable. Carle Vernet 

 was a painter of battle-pieces, but even he was careful to preserve ' the 

 proprieties.' Horace determined to paint his figures as he saw them. 

 It was a time when the French soldiers seemed to be rapidly subverting 

 Europe, and the whole nation was intoxicated with visions of the glory 

 of France. Horace Vernet had served for a while in the ranks, and 

 sharing to the fullest extent in the popular feeling, set himself the 

 task of representing the victories of the French armies, and the inci- 

 dents of military life and adventure : he undertook to show French- 

 men their military brethren in their toils, their pleasures, and their 

 triumphs ; and he has in the opinion of all Frenchmen thoroughly 

 succeeded. From the first the popularity of Horace Vernet's military 

 pictures has been beyond rivalry. His early 'Capture of the Redoubt,' 

 'Halt of French Soldiers,' 'Trumpeters,' 'Barriere de Clichy,' and 

 the like, were received by the public as faithful delineations of the 

 events, and placed him at the head of his branch of the profession and 

 in general estimation. In 1812 he was awarded the first-class medal 

 (History), and the emperor in 1814 created him a Chevalier of the 

 Legion of Honour. The restoration of the Bourbons did not check 

 his career of prosperity. In 1817 he sent to the Exposition his 

 'Defence of Paris, 1814,' and 'The Battle of Tolosa,' which are now 

 in the Luxembourg. The battles of Jemmapes, Montmirail, Valmy, 

 and others, succeeded, as well as ' The Soldier of Waterloo,' ' The 

 Defence of Saragossa,' ' The Death of Poniatowski,' &c. ; and in 1819 

 he painted his celebrated ' Massacre of the Mamelukes,' now in the 

 Luxembourg. 



The refusal to admit a work of his to the Exposition of 1822, proved 

 the occasion of a great triumph instead of a mortification to him. He 

 collected his pictures, and had an exhibition to himself which proved 

 very successful. In 1 825 he was raised by Charles X. to the rank of 

 Officer of the Legion of Honour, and in 1826 he was elected a member 

 of the Institute. Two years later he was appointed Director of the 

 Academy at Rome, and he held that post till the close of 1838. 

 During his tenure of office the system of instruction at the Academy 

 underwent a considerable change; but the school was regarded as 

 being well conducted and successful, and the Director was extremely 

 popular with the students. Horace Vernet lived at Rome in a style 

 of great splendour, and the saloons of the French Academy became a 

 centre of the cultivated society of the place. On the occurrence of 

 the revolution of 1830 the French legation having quitted Rome, M. 

 Vernet was nominated representative at the court of Rome, and he is 

 said to have executed his diplomatic functions with as much eclat as 

 did Rubens in earlier days. 



Louis Philippe was a liberal patron of Vernet. To him was intrusted 

 the task of covering the walls of the Constantino gallery at Versailles 

 with a series of battle-pieces, some of which as the capture of the 

 Smala of Abd-el-Kader are we believe among the largest canvasses ever 

 painted over. The Gallery of French History at Versailles, as well 

 as the galleries of the other palaces, were also adorned with examples 

 of his facile pencil. The Constantino Gallery at Versailles is devoted 

 to representations of the successes of the French arms in Algiers, to 

 which country Horace Vernet has paid more than one prolonged pro- 

 fessional visit, and the scenery, costume, and character of which he is 

 considered to have rendered with great fidelity as well as spirit. But 

 during the years of the Orleans dynasty he by no means confined his 

 pencil to battles, or even to military subjects. He had visited the 

 Holy Land, and his ' Judith aud Holofernes,' ' Rebecca at the 

 Fountain,' ' Hagar driven out by Abraham,' ' The Good Samaritan,' 

 and other Biblical subjects, were the result of his studies there ; he 

 also painted various historical works, such as ' The Arrest of the 

 Princes at the Palais-Royal by order of Anne of Austria,' and nume- 

 rous genre pictures, including his famous ' School of Raffaelle ' (well 

 known by Jazet's engraving), ' Combat between the Pope's Riflemen 

 and the Brigands ; ' ' Confession of the Dying Brigand,' and the like. 

 But the class of subjects in which he has of late seemed most to 

 delight are those illustrative of Eastern life and adventure ' Prayer 

 in the Desert,' ' Council of Arabs,' ' The Lion Hunt,' ' Arab 

 Mother rescuing her Child from a Lion,' and a multitude more, which 

 his rapid and daring pencil has struck off with amazing facility and 

 spirit. He has continued however to paint battles and military pic- 

 tures his ' Taking of Rome by Oudinot in 1849,' being of very large 

 size without any abatement of his former vigour. Within the last 

 year or two M. Vernet has again visited the East ; is still said to bo 

 meditating more "great works;" and still retains unimpaired his 

 immense popularity. He was made a Commander of the Legion of 

 Honour in 1842; aud he received the great medal of honour at the 

 Universal Exposition of 1855. He has refused to be made a baron. 

 He is said to have painted more pictures and larger pictures than any 

 contemporary artist in Europe ; and if they are not pictures of the 

 highest class, they have produced probably a far more extended aud 



