Ferdinand-Philippe-Louis, Duke of Chartres, as a child

The Young Duke of Chartres from 1821 at Versailles shows the future King Louis-Philippe's eldest son as a child. Vernet's portraits of the Orleans family document the dynasty that would rule France from 1830 to 1848. Vernet's position as the official painter of the July Monarchy and later Second Empire gave him unparalleled access to military subjects, and his technique combined careful documentation with dramatic compositional flair. Horace Vernet's portrait commissions came from across Europe — from the French aristocracy who survived the Revolution, the new imperial nobility of the Napoleonic era, and the crowned heads and aristocrats of Russia, Germany, and Italy who sought fashionable French portraiture. His portrait manner combined the formal requirements of aristocratic representation with the lighter touch and warmer palette of his Romantic generation, producing likenesses that were simultaneously flattering and specific. His success as a portraitist ran parallel to his military and Oriental painting production, demonstrating the range of a painter who was one of the most commercially successful artists in early nineteenth-century France.

The childhood portrait is rendered with refined handling and warm palette. Vernet's treatment combines aristocratic formality with childhood charm.