The Shipwreck

The Shipwreck (in Stormy Seas)

Vernet, Claude-Joseph

Oil on Canvas

113.5 x 162.9 cm

1773

 

Claude-Joseph Vernet was born on Aug 14, 1714, in Avignon, France and was the leading French landscape painter of the later 18^th century.  He spent the years 1734 to 1752 in Rome, where he studied classical landscapes in the tradition of Claude and Gaspard Dughet.  Vernet became a member of the Academy on his return to France and in 1753 received the important royal commission for a series of large canvases representing the ports of France (1753-1765).  He died on Dec 3, 1789, in Paris France.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/claude-joseph-vernet

 'Storm on a Coast' is a sensational storm and shipwreck scene depicting lashing rain, ships tossed on the sea and survivors scrambling to safety. Like 'Landscape at Sunset', the effects of light create visual drama in the contrast between the darkness of the sea and the sun breaking through the storm clouds.

 Vernet was renowned for pairs of paintings showing contrasting states of nature and his works were especially sought-after by British collectors in the 18th-century. This painting and its pendant, 'A Landscape at Sunset' are now the only such pair to be found in a British public collection. The pair originally belonged to the celebrated Englishman Clive of India, who bought them from Vernet in 1773. They are acknowledged as being two of Vernet's greatest marine pictures.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/claude-joseph-vernet-a-shipwreck-in-stormy-seas

All paintings were selected solely on the basis that they fit within the theme of boats or ships, and that I felt emotionally moved by them