Italian Brigands Surprised by Papal Troops

Description In this scene, papal troops intercept brigands who are looting a coach and carrying off its passengers. During the 19th century, brigands, or "banditi," posed a real threat to travelers in rural areas of the Italian states, but they were also idealized as daring outlaws. Horace Vernet, the director of the Académie de France in Rome (1828-34) and professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1835-63), was regarded as a leader of the "juste-milieu," or the middle course between the opposing Romantic and Neoclassical factions in French painting. He chose dramatic, often contemporary, subjects but rendered them with the smooth brushwork and attention to detail associated with the Academic tradition.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
2/09/1938	Treatment	cleaned; coated
2/11/1969	Treatment	repaired; coated
8/24/1981	Examination	examined for condition
11/17/1981	Treatment	examined for loan
5/23/1991	Treatment	repaired
3/19/1999	Examination	examined for condition
7/17/2003	Examination	examined for loan

Exhibitions

• Salon, Paris, 1831. Musée du Louvre, Paris. 1831.
• The Romantic Circle. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford. 1952.
• War à la Mode: Military Painting from the Forbes Collection. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1977.
• All the Banners Wave: Art and War in the Romantic Era. Brown University, Bell Gallery, List Art Center, Providence. 1982.
• French Artists in Rome: Ingres to Degas, 1803-1873 (Maestà di Roma. D'Ingres à Degas). Académie de France à Rome, Roma; Dahesh Museum of Art, New York. 2003.
• A Magnificent Age: Masterpieces from the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte. 2002-2004.
• 19th Century Masterpieces from the Walters Art Museum. Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara; Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin. 2010-2011.

Provenance John T. Johnston Collection [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; John T. Johnston Collection Sale, New York, December 20, 1876 [Robert Somerville as agent], no.146 [from Henry Walters handwritten notebook, 1887, no.101]; William T. Walters, Baltimore, 1876, by purchase; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1894, by inheritance; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Inscriptions [Signature] Lower right: H. Vernet Paris; [Date] Lower right: 1830

Credit Acquired by William T. Walters, 1876