Portrait of Carle Vernet
Robert Lefèvre (1755-1830) · 1804
A painter in his mid-forties stands at his easel in a dark green velvet coat, white waistcoat and cravat, holding a palette and brushes in one hand and a brush in the other. On the canvas behind him a horse and rider are sketched in outline, and an open paint box sits at the lower left. He is Carle Vernet, the painter of horses, hunts and battles, son of the marine painter Joseph Vernet and father of Horace Vernet. He looks at you with the easy assurance of a fashionable man.
Robert Lefèvre signed and dated the portrait in 1804 and showed it at the Salon that year. He was one of the most successful portraitists of the Empire and painted Napoleon and his court many times. The picture stayed in the sitter's family: Horace Vernet's daughter married the painter Paul Delaroche, and a descendant, Horace-Paul Delaroche, was the great-great-grandson of the sitter. It came to the Louvre by bequest in 1890. Three generations of Vernets are represented in the museum, and this is the middle one, seen by a friend.
Did You Know? Carle Vernet was the son of the marine painter Joseph Vernet and the father of Horace Vernet, three generations of painters.
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