Vernet, Antoine Charles Horace
VERNET, ANTOINE CHARLES HORACE (1758-1835), commonly called CARLE, the youngest child of CLAUDE JOSEPH VERNET, was born at Bordeaux in 1758, where his father was painting the view from the chateau of La Trompette (Louvre). He showed, at the age of five, an extraordinary passion for drawing horses, but went through the regular academical course as a pupil of Lepicie. Strangely enough, on arriving in Italy after carrying off the grand prix (1782), he lost all ambition and interest in his profession, so that his father had to recall him to France to prevent his entering a monastery. In Paris Carle Vernet became himself again, and distinguished himself at the exhibition of 1791 by his " Triumph of Paulus Aemilius," a work in which he broke with reigning traditions in classical subjects and drew the horse with the forms he had learnt from nature in stables and riding-schools. But the Revolution drew on, and Carle Vernet's career for awhile seemed to end in the anguish of his sister's death on the scaffold. When he again began to produce, it was as the man of another era: his drawings of the Italian campaign brought him fresh laurels; his vast canvas, the " Battle of Marengo," obtained great success; and for his " Morning of Austerlitz " Napoleon bestowed on him the Legion of Honour. His hunting-pieces, races, landscapes, and work as a lithographer (chiefly under the Restoration) had also a great vogue. From Louis XVIII. he received the order of St Michael. In 1827 he accompanied his son Horace (EMILE JEAN HORACE VERNET) to Rome, and died in Paris on his return, on the i?th of November 1835.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
