American Art Collaborative

This was part of a group of preparatory oil sketches that came on the market in Paris in the 1980s, with identical frames, all having a label with the number 59.(1) All of the studies were said to be for one of Vernet’s most ambitious paintings, La Prise de la smalah d’Abd-el-Kader le 16 mai 1843 (The Taking of the Retinue/Camp of Abd-el-Kader on 16 Mai 1843). The immense canvas was completed the very year the events depicted in it took place, and it was installed in a room now part of the Musée national du Château de Versailles. The installation was part of a propaganda effort designed to glorify the military exploits of King Louis-Philippe, in this case a battle won by his son, the Duke of Aumale, at Taguin, south of Algiers. French forces captured the huge retinue of Abd-el-Kader, leader of the resistance against French colonization of Algeria. While Abd-el-Kader himself was not present, and was not captured until 1847, the victory of the French in 1843 was significant in putting down Algerian resistance. The French forces in Algeria were made up of a mixture of native Frenchmen and Algerians. The Algerians were led by a Colonel Yousouf and his mounted Saphis, while the Duke of Aumale commanded the Chasseurs d’Afrique, an elite regiment of French cavalrymen. The Saphis initiated the charge against the enemy camp, while the Chasseurs d’Afrique finished the task in a second wave. The entire battle lasted only an hour and a half. This study shows the familiar blue shirts, red sashes and trousers, and distinctive caps of the Chasseurs. With the light touch of the Romantic age, Vernet captured the motion of the mounted soldiers with admirable economy. Long, flowing strokes of paint indicate a horse’s tail, or light as it reflects off a light blue tunic. Quick applications of drier paint capture the rump of a dappled gray, or the thin shaft of a sword’s blade. Yet the artist effortlessly transmits the sense of force and power from right to left, as the horsemen go from a steady march toward a gallop that will result in a powerful thrust into enemy lines. The heart of any Frenchman would have been stirred to great pride watching this demonstration of heroism and national prowess, and of course that is precisely why Vernet was such an important, and successful, military painter. Like any major French painter of the Romantic period, Vernet executed hundreds of studies for his major compositions. Every aspect of his subject, from anatomy to attitude, was carefully recorded, studied, and restudied. The sketch shows how exceptionally thorough painters of this period were in examining what they depicted. A group of Chasseurs d’Afrique is featured in the middle left of the final painting, and their composition and the sense of inexorable forward motion of riders and horses is reflected in the Colby study. Reflected almost literally in that the riders in the final painting move toward the viewer, not away. Vernet wanted to study his subject from all sides, even while he intended to depict them finally, as charging toward his audience.Michael Marlais1. Information from W. M. Brady & Co., Inc., in Colby Museum of Art file.