A wounded grenadier of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard has just buried his fallen comrades in the aftermath of the battle of Waterloo. In the tradition of Romantic landscape painting, the solitary figure sits in a ruined landscape, absorbed in his melancholy meditations on the horrors of war. The fiery rays of the sun setting behind clouds and the flashes of lightning seem to heighten the drama of military defeat, which is also signaled by the downturned torches on the original frame.
Details
- Artist Name: Horace Vernet (French, 1789-1863)
- Title: A Soldier on the Field of Battle
- Date: 1818
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 18-1/16 x 21-5/8 in. (46 x 55 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation
- Accession Number: M.1977.26.3.P
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
Private collection, England.
[Etablissement Rustique, Vaduz, Leichenstein, consigned to];
[Heim Gallery, Ltd., London, sold 1977 to];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Brettell, Richard R. and Stephen F. Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum, volume 1,
Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, cat. 1463 p. 410
Studziżba-Kubalska, Beata, "Wokół Durerowskiej Melancholii. Kilka uwag i uzupełnień w dyskusji o ikonograficznych źródłach "Portretu generała Henryka Dembińskiego" Henryka Rodakowskiego, il. 6 p. 29 ; inside front cover (ill.), p. 28 (ill.)
Vatous, J., Notices historiques sur les tableaux de la Galerie de S.A.R.M. gr le Duc d'Orleans, pp. 299-302
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