Horace Vernet
From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia
Historical figure.
Émile Jean-Horace Vernet (30 june 1789 - 17 january 1863) more commonly known as simply Horace Vernet, was a French painter of battles, portraits, and Orientalist subjects.
In the Sherlock Holmes stories
- Sherlock Holmes said his grandmother was the sister of Vernet, the French artist (GREE 10).
Which Vernet ?
It is generally assumed that it was Horace but Vernets had 3 painters in the family :
- Horace Vernet (1789-1863)
- Carle Vernet (1758-1836) father
- Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) grandfather
Horace Vernet's sister was "Camille Françoise Joséphine Vernet" (1788–1858) which would be the grandmother of Sherlock Holmes.
Camille Vernet married Hippolyte Lecomte (1781-1857) and had 4 children :
- Françoise Fanny Lecomte (1809-?)
- Louis Lecomte (ca. 1812-?)
- Louise Lecomte (ca 1815-?)
- Charles Emile Hippolyte Lecomte (1821-1900)
Any of these could have been the father/mother of Sherlock Holmes.
To get the name Holmes, it should be Françoise or Louise who had married a Mr. Holmes...
