VERNET, Claude-Joseph
French Painter, 1714-1789
Painter. Vernet probably received his first lessons in painting from his father, Antoine, who then encouraged him to move to the studio of Philippe Sauvan (1697-1792), the leading master in Avignon. Sauvan supplied altarpieces to local churches and decorative works and mythologies for grand houses in the area. After this apprenticeship Vernet worked in Aix-en-Provence with the decorative painter Jacques Viali ( fl 1681- 1745), who also painted landscapes and marine pictures. In 1731 Vernet independently produced a suite of decorative overdoors for the h?tel of the Marquise de Simiane at Aix-en-Provence; at least two of these survive (in situ) and are Vernet's earliest datable landscapes. These are early indications of his favoured type of subject, and Vernet would have studied works attributed to such 17th-century masters as Claude Lorrain, Gaspard Dughet and Salvator Rosa in private collections at Aix and Avignon. Three years later Joseph de Seytres, Marquis de Caumont, who had previously recommended Vernet to the Marquise de Simiane, offered to sponsor a trip to Italy.
ID: 62553 The Artist's Studio 52 x 64 cm Private collection The picture shows the artist's as a crowded and social space, where work was more likely to be interrupted by loungers and visitors, fencing matches and dog fights, than by melancholy soul-searching. Yet in fact this is an image of frustration. The fall of Napoleon had left the once-fashionable Vernet bereft of subjects and patrons, and his political views had excluded him from the Paris Salon of 1821. He had been obliged to show in this very studio, including his picture of it as an ironic symbol of the impasse to which he had been brought. Author: VERNET, Horace Title: The Artist's Studio Form: painting , 1801-1850 , French , interior
