Pierre-Hippolyte Aumont

French, died 1865

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A leafless, ash-white tree trunk has fallen from a broken stump into the wide V of a neighboring tree at the edge of a body of water near a verdant forest in this horizontal landscape painting. The fallen trunk creates a diagonal from near the lower left corner to the upper right. As it fell, it sheared off a substantial branch from a neighboring tree with a dark trunk. The bark where the damaged branch has pulled away is honey-orange, the same color as the leaves at the canopy, which has been pinned under the fallen trunk. Trees, vines, and other vegetation fill the space around and beyond this pair. In the lower right corner of the painting, vines grow over a broken stump, which deep in shadow. Between the stump and fallen tree, the peanut-brown surface of the water is smooth. Tiny in scale beneath the fallen tree and easily overlooked, there are two men and a dog in a boat. One man stands at the back of the boat and pushes it along with a long pole. He wears a tall, brown, cloth hat, a white shirt rolled up to the elbows under a blue vest, and loose-fitting pants. A second man wears a flat-topped, white hat with a black brim, a long, forest-green jacket, and tight-fitting slate-blue pants. He braces a rifle against one shoulder and shoots into the forest. The dog is white with brown spots, and it stands with its front paws on the edge of the boat, presumably ready to spring after the target. A patch of blue sky with puffy white clouds is seen above the trees in the upper left corner. The artist signed and dated the work in the lower right corner: “H. Vernet Rome 1833.”
Horace Vernet, Hunting in the Pontine Marshes, 1833, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund, 1989.3.1

Hunting in the Pontine Marshes

Horace Vernet · 1833 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1989.3.1

A shaft of sunlight illuminates a bone-white, barren tree trunk that has fallen across a stream within a dense wood in this horizontal landscape painting. The water closest to us is deep in shadow, and the surface closer to the opposite bank is a shimmering moss green. One spiraling, ash-brown tree trunk rises out of the stream to our right of center, and another hunched, gnarled trunk grows from the far bank, to our left. Tiny in scale, two dogs stand at the water’s edge between the gnarled tree and the fallen trunk beyond. The dirt earth where the tree had stood is sand-colored, and it is surrounded with pea and pine-green grass and growth. Nearly lost in shadow, to our right, three men gather just beyond the fallen tree. Two ride donkeys while the third strides toward them with his rifle resting on his shoulder, leading another donkey. All three men wear dark jackets and trousers and tan-colored hats. A fourth man rides a donkey into the scene from the right side. Just above his head, slivers of blue water and a pale pink sky peek through the tree trunks. A fifth donkey faces us from our side of the fallen tree and a third dog runs toward the water. The impenetrable forest reaches off the top edge of the painting, the trees painted in hunter, olive, and sage green. Many of the tree trunks are wrapped with vines.
Horace Vernet, Departure for the Hunt in the Pontine Marshes, 1833, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund, 2004.38.1

Departure for the Hunt in the Pontine Marshes

Horace Vernet · 1833 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2004.38.1