VERNET, A celebrated family of French painters. The earliest member to attain prominence, CLAUDE JOSEPH ( ) , called JOSEPH VERNET. a marine and landscape painter, was a pupil of his father, ANTOINE VERNET ( 1689 1753), but was more influenced by Salvator Rosa during his course of study in Italy. His best known work is a series of fifteen paintings of the ports of France commissioned by Louis XV., now in the Slusc'e de la Marine (Louvre). Though in the classic style of the school of Claude Lorraine, his works show a simpler and truer observation of nature than those of most contemporaries, and he is, in a certain sense, the precursor of the modern French landscape paint ers. His son and pupil, ANTOINE ARLES HORACE usually called CARL E VER NET, was best in genre works, usually comic in character, though be also painted Napoleonic battle-pieces, portraits, and hunting scenes, and made good designs for lithography; he is, indeed, one of the founders of French caricature. Though weak in color, his paintings arc skillful in design.
His son, 11(1AcE VERNET ( 1 789- 1863 ) , battle painter, the most celebrated member of the fam ily, was born June 30, 1759. A pupil first of his father, then of Moreau and Vincent, he worked as a youth with facility with crayon, burin, or brush. in 1510 he showed his renuneiation of classicism in his of a his first medal being won two years later with his of an lle was popular at Court, receiving commissions from the Empress Maria Louisa and the King of Westphalia. In 1511 fie helped defend the Barrii%re do Clichy and received as a reward the Cross of the Legion of donor from the Emperor. The incident of the siege was pictured in 1814, and refused by the Salon, net having incurred the disfavor of the Bour bons. He subsequently won the favor of Charles
X. and secured royal commissions. In 1826 he was elected to the Institute, and from 1828 to 1833 was director of the French Academy at Rome. He made several visits to Algiers and to Saint Petersburg, besides visiting and gathering notes for military subjects in Egypt, Syria, Pal estine, and Turkey. At the opening of the Palace of Versailles in 183:3 as an historical museum, Louis Philippe commissioned him to paint pie tures of the battlefields of Friedland, Jena, and Wagram for the great gallery of battle pieces. Later be produced, from sketehes made in Al giers, a series of pictures celebrating the con quest of that country, a. work which occupied him from 1836 to 1842. Scenes of soldiery or battle appealed most strongly to him, though lie cuted many landscapes and portraits, among his sitters being Napoleon I., Louis Philippe, Em peror Nicholas, the Empress of Russia. Napoleon HI., and many of the marshals of France. His immense productiveness resulted in over eight hundred canvases. His works display facility of invention, good arrangement, and fiery energy; but their execution is hasty, and they are ficient in color. Consult the works on Les Ver nets by Charles Wane (Paris, 1545 ), Lagrange lib.. 1864), Durande (ib., 1865), Clement (ib., 1876), and Dayot 1895) : also Lagrange, Joseph et lea peinture au XVIIRme sieele (ib., 1861) ; Bertholon and Lhote. Horace Ver net iz Versailles, au Luxembourg et au Lourre (ih., 1863) ; Rees, Vernet and Delaroehe (London, 1880).