Hunting in the Pontine Marshes
Horace Vernet·1833
Historical Context
Vernet's Hunting in the Pontine Marshes from 1833 depicts a hunting party in the malaria-prone coastal marshes south of Rome that were one of the most important hunting grounds in the Papal States. Vernet spent six years as director of the French Academy in Rome and became thoroughly familiar with the Roman countryside and its aristocratic hunting culture. The Pontine Marshes — later drained by Mussolini — were characterized by their mix of wildlife, equestrian hunting culture, and the picturesque peasant population that Vernet documented with the same direct observation he brought to Oriental and military subjects.
Technical Analysis
Vernet's oil on canvas combines precise equestrian painting with atmospheric landscape, using warm Italian light and dynamic figure composition to create an exciting sporting scene set in the distinctive flat terrain of the Pontine Marshes.
Provenance
Pierre-Hippolyte Aumont [d. 1865], by 1846.[1] Probably (sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 6 May 1870, no. 4, as _Chasse dans les marais Pontins_).[2] (sale, Ader Picard Tajan, Paris, 12 December 1988, no. 78); purchased 18 January 1989 by NGA. [1] In a Paris sale, _Tableaux modernes provenant en partie de la collection de M. D***_, 29 March 1862, a painting by Horace Vernet, _Chase au marais_, figured under no. 53. The dimensions, given as 51 x 41 cm, are so much smaller than those of the picture in the NGA that a confusion with it seems not possible. The painting was lent by Aumont to the 1846 exhibition at the Bazar Bonne-Nouvelle. [2] This sale reference did not appear in the NGA's systematic catalogue entry on the painting (Lorenz Eitner, _French Paintings of the Nineteenth Century. Part I: Before Impressionism_, New York and Oxford, 2000: 352-355), at which time the location of the painting's pendant, _Departure for the Hunt in the Pontine Marshes_, was not known. When the pendant appeared at auction in 2003 (it was subsequently purchased by the NGA and is now 2004.38.1), the sale catalogue cited Bruno Chenique's suggestion that NGA 1989.3.1 and NGA 2004.38.1 were lot numbers 4 and 5 in this 1870 sale.
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