The Mid-Century Crisis, 1846–1852

Abstract

In the summer of 1846 Horace Vernet received 25,000 francs from the king to paint ‘Louis-Philippe and his sons riding out from the château of Versailles’. Eschewing earlier Orléanist iconography connecting the regime to the Revolutions of 1789 and 1830, and even to Napoleon, Vernet now deliberately linked the idea of a stable dynasty to images of Versailles, the Bourbon fleur-de-lis and a statue of Louis XIV. The serene power of Vernet’s imagery was a direct response to — but in sharp contrast with — the social and political context of 1846–7.¹