From 1811 to 1815 Vernet appeared at court and was quite popular. He painted portraits of the different members of the royal family. He was so celebrated for his drawings, that the editors disputed for them, and paid him the highest prices. In 1814 he was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor. At the restoration, he for a time was under a cloud. He was not idle, but such were his subjects that he was shut out of the Louvre. He, however, executed many paintings, which subsequently became celebrated. Disgusted with the treatment he received, he journeyed with his father into Italy.
The Louvre continued shut against Vernet's pictures, but the peers took up his cause with great unanimity and enthusiasm. A list of his best pictures was published and warmly eulogized, and as they could be seen at his studio, the crowd of artists and critics, and others, wended their way thither. The painter was recompensed. In the midst of this crowd, and the confusion necessarily consequent upon their visit, Horace Vernet went on quietly in his work, in their presence, and executed that series of grand paintings, which in after years brought him so wide a renown. The duke of Orleans was his warm friend. He bought many pictures of him, and ordered himself painted in every style. Charles X. grew jealous, and concluded it wise to withdraw his persecution of the artist. He ordered a portrait of himself, and the Louvre was open to him.
He now wrought a revolution in the art of painting in Paris, and established a new school. It was his desire to triumph over David, and he boasted that he would do so. The public pronounced him the first painter of the age. Some of his best pictures at this time were painted at Rome. Upon his return he found his old friend king, under the title of Louis Philippe. He was, of course, a favorite at court. The king gave him the use of a studio at Versailles, of a magnificent description, in which he wrought at great national pictures. He was an indefatigable worker. He never hesitated to make the longest journey to study the scene of his pictures. He traveled up and down the Mediterranean, visited Arabia, Africa, and other distant spots, lived in tents, put up with privation and suffering, that he might paint from nature. His memory was so excellent that having once looked upon a spot, nothing was afterward forgotten; every characteristic of the place was sure to reappear upon the canvas. The least detail of position or gesture, he remembered for years with ease. Indeed, his faculty for daguerreotyping such things upon his mind, was wonderful. He met his friend, the marquis de Pastorel, one day, who said:
"How are you, Horace; where have you kept yourself for these two years? I have not met you for years."
"You are mistaken," replied the artist; "I met you six months since in the garden of the Tuileries."
"You are dreaming," said the marquis.
"No," said Vernet, "a lady was with you—wait a moment and I will sketch her face."
He drew a few hasty lines upon a bit of paper, and lo! the marquis beheld the face of an intimate lady friend of his, and at the same instant remembered that he had escorted her across the Tuileries gardens six months before.
"It is well for you that you live now" said the marquis, "for two centuries earlier they would have burned you for a sorcerer."
Horace Vernet has been a great student of the scriptures, and he maintains that in painting historical scenes from the bible, the costumes should be such as the Arabians use at this time, and in his scripture paintings he has followed out this plan.