Claude-Joseph Vernet Avignon 1714 - 1789 Paris

Private collection, France;
Anonymous sale, Paris, Piasa, 17 December 1997, lot 26 (as signed and dated 1763);
With Richard Green, London;
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a recent lining and stretcher. The fine texture is well preserved with its delicate impasto. There is only a faint craquelure with no sign of old stretcher bar lines at all. It is remarkably preserved even for a work by Vernet, whose technique remains almost invariably faultless. There is one small retouching in the rocks on the left, one to the left of the base edge, some minor touches along the top edge and some at the lower right edge in the water. Essentially the painting is virtually immaculate, with a fine unworn luminous paint surface. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This painting was almost certainly conceived as one of a pair, the pendant probably depicting either a harbour by night or in the midst of a storm. At the time of execution, Vernet had just given up on the greatest task of his career which was to paint more than twenty large canvases representing the Ports of France, originally commissioned back in 1755 by Louis XV. After ten years he had completed only fifteen of the series,¹ and the task was completed during the Revolution by Jean-François Hue (1751-1823).

The design of this work is entirely typical of the artist who, on one side of the composition would often place a lighthouse or circular fortress and on the other side, to balance it, a man-of-war or frigate at anchor. The fortress here is almost certainly imaginary but inspired by the Castel Sant' Angelo in Rome, which Vernet would have sketched during his twenty-year-long stay in Rome, from 1734 to 1753, and indeed painted by him in 1745.²  Vernet was sent to Rome by Joseph de Seytres, Marquis de Caumont, who sponsored and commissioned him to make drawings of the antiquities there. Vernet's career flourished once in Rome and he was probably first drawn to painting marines by Adriaen Manglard, under whom he is thought to have studied. Vernet's paintings appealed greatly to the English Grand Tourists and he was also patronised by several French diplomats. In 1743 he became a member of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, and in 1746, back in Paris, he was approved by the Académie Royale who allowed him to exhibit at the Salon henceforward. He was elected as a full member of the Académie in 1753, upon his return from Italy.

Two other versions of this composition are known: one, of oval format, was in London, Christie's, 3 December 1997, lot 51 (withdrawn), and the other, signed and dated 1767, was sold in Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 15 December 1959, lot 32.
 
This painting will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné on the artist being compiled by Dr. Philip Conisbee.

1  Two are in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and the other thirteen are on deposit in the Musée Maritime, Paris.
2  Now in Paris, Musée du Louvre, no. 935.