Horace Vernet
Biography1789 - 1863
About the artist
Horace Vernet (1789, Paris – 1863, Paris), full name Émile Jean-Horace Vernet, was a French painter of battles, portraits, and oriental subjects. He was a grandchild of Claude Joseph Vernet. Horace Vernet rejected the seriousness of academic French art influenced by Classicism and painted subjects of contemporary culture.
He depicted French soldiers in a familiar rather than in an idealized way. He gained recognition for a series of battle paintings commissioned by the Duc d’Orléans. During his career Horace Vernet was honored with dozens of battle paintings, particularly by King Louis-Philippe (the former Duc d’Orléans). After the fall of the July Monarchy in 1848 Vernet discovered a new patron in Napoleon III. He continued painting representations of the heroic French army during the Second Empire and maintained his commitment to representing war in an accessible and realistic way.
He depicted French soldiers in a familiar rather than in an idealized way. He gained recognition for a series of battle paintings commissioned by the Duc d’Orléans. During his career Horace Vernet was honored with dozens of battle paintings, particularly by King Louis-Philippe (the former Duc d’Orléans). After the fall of the July Monarchy in 1848 Vernet discovered a new patron in Napoleon III. He continued painting representations of the heroic French army during the Second Empire and maintained his commitment to representing war in an accessible and realistic way.
