Horses

Carle Vernet circle (Bordeaux, 1758-Paris, 1836)

Horses

Oil on canvas, 31 x 40 cm

With frame, 48 x 58 cm

The refined oil paintings on canvas that we are going to analyze fall into the circle of the French painter and engraver Carle Vernet, drawing inspiration from two lithographs bearing the signature of the French artist. A pupil of his father, Joseph Vernet and Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié, he was in turn the teacher of his son, the more famous Horace Vernet. Carle excelled in hunting scenes, in the depiction of small craftsmen in the streets of Paris and in popular scenes. But above all he was passionate about horses of which he had a profound knowledge. In his Triumph of Paolo Emilio, he broke with tradition by painting horses as they are in nature and not as they were usually represented. In 1782 he won the Prix de Rome. He left for Rome but, later, his father called him back to France to prevent him from entering a convent. During the Revolution Vernet took an ambiguously conservative attitude. Enlisted in the National Guard, he was wounded on 10 August 1792, but it was rumored that he was fighting to defend the Tuileries Palace and not to attack it. During the Revolution he lost his sister Emelie, sentenced to death by guillotine as she was politically compromised; despite the request for help from his friend Jacques-Louis David, he was unable to save his sister and for this reason he stopped painting for several years, only to then resume his artistic activity but only representing war scenes, in particular those linked to the Napoleonic campaigns. His works were admired by Napoleon himself, of whom I also created a portrait on horseback, who praised his Morning in Austerliz during his visit to the Salon of 1808.The cross of the Legion of Honor with which the emperor rewarded him derived both from the admiration of Vernet as an artist but also as a man, since previously the artist had accompanied Napoleon in the battle of Marengo, receiving the praise of Empress Josephine herself. Despite the close ties with the fallen emperor, he also received prizes and recognition from Louis XVIII for the extensive merits achieved in the artistic field. Ultimately, our paintings fully represent the taste of the French painter during his most artistically lively and productive period, always attentive to the naturalistic rendering of the physicalities of animals, a stylistic element that he handed down to his son Horace and, consequently, to Theodore Gericault. The relevance is also noticeable from a technical point of view: the concentration on the strokes and its contours are typical of those expert in drawing, followed by the application of oil colours. The painter must have fully followed Vernet's methods and technique, returning a drawing attentive to the anatomical and naturalistic details of the animal, as well as the surrounding environment, and, at the same time, giving a vibratable and dynamic tone when applying the colors.