Caricature of Charles-Henri Plantade (?)

Horace Vernet

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Vernet is best known as an accomplished history painter, but like many academic artists of his day, including his teacher François -André Vincent, he also made caricatures. Among these were numerous drawings of friends and acquaintances as well as sketches of fellow Academicians during the meetings of the Institut de France. This wonderful wsh drawing most likely depicts the Romantic composer Charles-Henri Plantade. A lightly traced inscription in graphite at the bottom left appears to read "Plantade,"and the image resembles a more serious profile-portrait of Plantade, who clearly had a prominent nose, which Vernet increased considerably in size. It is a good-natured caricature that Vernet signed with a characteristic flourish at the bottom.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art