Vernet

(vĕrnā´), French family of painters. Claude Joseph Vernet, 1714–89, marine painter, b. Avignon, studied with his father, Antoine Vernet, a decorative painter, and in Rome, where he acquired a reputation for fine work. He was summoned to Paris in 1753 and commissioned by the king to paint the famous series of seaports of France. He finished 14 of them (Louvre). His son Antoine Charles Horace Vernet, 1758–1835, called Carle Vernet, rose to fame under the empire with his drawings of the Italian campaign and his paintings The Battle of Marengo (Versailles) and Morning of Austerlitz. Under the Restoration he was popular as a lithographer and painter of dogs, horses, and scenes of the hunt. His son Émile Jean Horace Vernet, 1789–1863, was one of the most popular military painters of the 19th cent. He is best known for his decorations of the Constantine Room at Versailles and his Defense of the Barrier at Clichy (Louvre).