01 Work, The Art of War, Horace Vernet's Peace and War, with footnotes

Horace Vernet (1789–1863)

Peace and War, c. 1820

Oil on canvas

H 55 x W 45.8 cm

The Wallace Collection

A former Napoleonic soldier, now a farmer, overturns with his plough the grave of one of his fellow soldiers and finds himself pondering past glories. The subject derives ultimately from Virgil’s 'Georgics', I, 493–497, but it refers specifically to the distressed state of many veterans of Napoleon’s Grande Armée during the Bourbon Restoration. Vernet depicts the soldat laboureur as a peaceful farmer, but also as a hero mindful of the honour and prestige associated with the military events of the Napoleonic era. In nineteenth-century France the subject’s emphasis on the bonds between the army and the peasantry was to have particular resonance, especially for Bonapartists who stressed the popular aspects of Napoleon’s rule. More on this painting

Émile Jean-Horace Vernet (30 June 1789 – 17 January 1863), more commonly known as simply Horace Vernet, was a French painter of battles, portraits, and Orientalist subjects.

Grandson of Claude-Joseph Vernet and son of another eminent artist, Carle Vernet (1758-1836), he soon developed an extraordinary facility as a painter which he used to depict a wide range of subjects including scenes taken from literature, the Bible, contemporary Italy, North Africa and the Middle East.

He is best known, however, for his many paintings celebrating French military prowess, including a series of large battle pieces for Versailles. Louis-Philippe, who had first bought his work in 1817, favoured him with many commissions. Although he achieved notoriety when some of his paintings were rejected by the Paris Salon jury of 1822, allegedly because of their anti-Bourbon character, he received a number of honours from the restored Bourbon monarchy, including in 1828 the Directorship of the French Academy in Rome (which he retained until 1834).

His many foreign journeys included visits to Algeria (1833, 1837, 1839, 1845 and 1853), the Middle East (1839-40), Russia (1836 and 1842-3) and the Crimea (1854-5). More on Émile Jean-Horace Vernet

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