Carle Vernet

Born in Bordeaux, Carle Vernet was a pupil of his father, the popular landscapist Joseph Vernet, as well as Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié. Carle Vernet won the grand prix in 1782. Napoleon commissioned him to paint battle scenes glorifying the nation, but his real talent was for intimate genre and for drawing rather than for painting. His long series of fashionable studies, often satirizing contemporary manners and costume, were reproduced by the best engravers of the time. After the restoration of the monarchy, Vernet became court painter to Louis XVIII.