_Horace Vernet_ (French: 1789-1863).
Emile John Horace Vernet, soldier and artist, was the
grandson of Claude Joseph Vernet (236). He was decorated in
1814 by Napoleon for his gallant conduct before the enemy
at the Barrière de Clichy, on which occasion he served in a
regiment of hussars. In the Louvre there is a picture by him
representing the defence of Paris on that occasion. On the fall
of the Empire he left France for a time, but he gradually won
the favour of the court. In 1833 he joined the French army at
Algiers, and there gathered material for the huge battle-pieces
which he painted for Louis Philippe. The Crimean War furnished
him with another congenial set of subjects. His work had a
great vogue in its day, but owed more to its patriotic and
stirring subject-matter than to abiding artistic qualities.
Less ideal than the beautiful sketch which David made of Napoleon
as First Consul, or the later conventional pictures painted for
a generation which had not seen the original. There is no dreamy
intensity in the eyes, and no engaging smile. The famous lock in the
centre of the forehead is there, and the face is still handsome,
imposing, and resolute; but there is already something of the heaviness
which presaged his fall.