Horace Vernet - The Angel of Death [1851]

Horace Vernet - The Angel of Death [1851], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Émile Jean-Horace Vernet (Paris, June 30, 1789 - Paris, January 17, 1863) was a French painter of battles, portraits, and Orientalist Arab subjects. One well known and possibly apocryphal anecdote maintains that when Vernet was asked to remove a certain obnoxious general from one of his paintings, he replied, "I am a painter of history, sire, and I will not violate the truth," hence demonstrating his fidelity to representing war truthfully.

[Oil on canvas, 146 x 113 cm]