The wonderful stories told about the early exhibitions of genius in many
celebrated painters are really true with respect to Joseph Vernet. In
his infancy, he exhibited the most extraordinary passion for painting.
He himself has related, that on his return from Italy, his mother gave
him some drawings which he had executed at the age of five years, when
he was rewarded by being allowed to use the pencils he had tried to
purloin. Before he was fifteen, he painted frieze-panels, fire-screens,
coach-panels, sedan chair-panels, and the like, whenever he could get a
commission; he also gave proof of that facility of conceiving and
executing, which was one of the characteristics of his genius.