Philippe Lenoir

Philippe Lenoir from 1814 at the Louvre is an early portrait showing Vernet developing the skills that would make him one of France's most prolific portrait painters alongside his military specialization. Horace Vernet's fluent oil technique allowed rapid execution of large-scale battle scenes and Orientalist compositions with a journalistic immediacy that his contemporaries found both exciting and, to some academic critics, superficial. Horace Vernet, born into the most distinguished artistic dynasty in France and trained in the finest academic tradition, was the most commercially successful French painter of the first half of the nineteenth century. His military paintings, portraits, Oriental subjects, and biblical scenes were in continuous demand from the most powerful patrons in Europe, including King Louis-Philippe of France and Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. His enormous output — he was famous for the speed of his production — combined the technical facility inherited from three generations of painter ancestors with the Romantic sensibility and historical curiosity that defined the French art of his era.

The portrait is rendered with careful observation and polished handling. Vernet's early technique shows developing command of formal portraiture.