(b Bordeaux, 14 Aug 1758; d Paris, 27 Nov 1836). Painter and lithographer, son of (1) Joseph Vernet. At the age of 11 he entered the studio of Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié. His training culminated in the award of the Prix de Rome in 1782; however, his stay in Rome was terminated when he underwent a ‘mystical experience’ and was sent back to Paris. He was approved (agréé) by the Académie Royale in 1789 on presentation of the Triumph of Aemilius Paulus (New York, Met.). Although his sister Emilie was guillotined, none of the tragic aspects of the Revolution is apparent in his subsequent work. His wittily malicious satires of Directoire types, Incroyables et merveilleuses (Dayot 66), engraved in 1797, made his reputation and set the tone for most of his future aquatinted work, for example Costumes (1814–18; D 73). An early practitioner of lithography, he excelled in the acute, unexaggerated observation of contemporary manners, e.g. Delpech’s Print Shop (c. 1818; see LITHOGRAPHY, fig. 5) and the Cries of Paris (100 plates, after 1816; D 147).

Part of the Vernet family

• Vernet, Carle
  • Lecomte, Hippolyte
  • Vernet
  • collaboration
    • Bidauld, Jean-Joseph-Xavier
    • Boze, Joseph
    • Lefèvre, Robert
  • groups and movements
    • Paris, §VI, 3(i): Académie des Beaux-Arts: Foundation and institutional structure
  • pupils
    • Gericault, Théodore, §I, 1: Training and early work, before 1814
    • Vernet: (3) Horace Vernet
  • reproductive prints by others
    • Debucourt, Philibert-Louis
  • teachers
    • Lépicié: (2) Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié
  • works
    • France, §XI, 1(v): Tapestry, after 1800
    • Lami, Eugène
    • Lithography, §II, 1(iii): Invention and incunabula, before c 1818: France
    • Lithography, §II, 2(ii)(a): Fine art developments, 1818–89
    • Master printers, §II: The influence of lithography