Horace VERNET (Paris, 1789 - 1863) - Lot 11

Horace VERNET (Paris, 1789 - 1863) Seventeen studies for portraits Canvas Height : 57 cm Width : 84 cm Provenance : Delaroche-Vernet family Bibliography and exhibition: Horace Vernet 1789-1863, Rome, Académie de France, and Paris, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 1980, p. 91, no. 65. The catalog states: "This montage of 17 portraits caught our attention, because it shows us the way Horace worked, taking quick sketches of models, which he then included in larger compositions. Despite examination in the Louvre laboratory, it has not been possible to decipher the names of all the figures assembled here. The figures assembled here all appear to have been painted between around 1820 and 1835. "In this publication, Isabelle Julia identifies several of the models: - At top right, in fifth position, the military figure is General Drouot (1774-1847), hero of the Napoleonic epic for which Vernet was nostalgic; - below, in tenth position, the child is Ferdinand Philippe (1810-1842), Duc de Chartres. This is a study for the full-length portrait of the Duc de Chartres holding a hoop from 1821, now at the Château de Versailles (since 2015); - in twelfth position, the woman with a hat is Natalie de Laborde (1774-1835), Countess de Noailles, then Duchess de Mouchy, who was one of Chateaubriand's loves and a muse; - bottom left, fourteenth position, with beret, perhaps Adrien Perlet (1795-1850), a comic actor at the Comédie-Française during the Restoration; - in sixteenth position (bottom, second row from right), perhaps Ferdinand Philippe (1810-1842), now grown and titled Duke of Orléans (or one of his brothers). As a hypothesis, we propose the following additions: - in second place, wearing a black hat, Vernet's collector and friend Philippe Lenoir (1785 - 1867), by comparison with his portrait by Vernet in the Louvre; - in third place, Anne-Françoise-Hippolyte Boutet (1779-1847), the famous actress known as Mademoiselle Mars, by comparison with her portrait by Vernet at the Château de Versailles since 2020; - in fourth place, the neoclassical painter Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (1774-1833), master of Delacroix and Géricault, by comparison with his portrait by Vernet at the Beaux-arts de Paris, painted around 1829; - in sixth place, collector and banker David Schickler (1777-1866), by comparison with his portrait by Vernet in the Paul and Raphaëlle de Pourtalès collection. - in seventh place, the painter François-Joseph Heim (1787-1865), by comparison with his portrait by Vernet in the Louvre's Department of Graphic Arts; - in eleventh place, the Duc d'Orléans, Louis-Philippe 1er (1773-1850), King of the French from 1830, by comparison with the portrait by Vernet in the Musée Condé at Chantilly. Another study for the black soldier, in ninth position, with a variant, is kept in a private collection. Its model has not been identified. Expert: Cabinet Turquin