Claude-Joseph Vernet

With the Clarendon Gallery, London.

The tone of the painting is cooler and less red than the catalogue illustration suggests. The large canvas has a recent relining. The signed and dated paint surface appears to the naked eye to be overall in good condition, clean and secure. A small, old, repaired damage of approximately 1cm2 can be discerned on a rock in the foreground, at the lower left of the painting. A second old repaired tear of approximately 10cm. can be made out on the cliff to the right hand side of the painting. There is an area of abrasion of approximately 10 by 10cm in the sky centre right. Inspection under UV light reveals fairly extensive though scattered retouchings in the sky, and foreground, though the figures are largely unaffected. The central sail of the ship has also been retouched and UV light confirms the retouchings to the aforementioned damages, as well as a strip of retouching along the left hand margin which may have been added to cover some frame abrasion. These retouchings have been sympathetically applied and do not affect the appreciation or decorative impact of the painting or its vibrant colours. Offered in a carved gilt wood frame with some knocks.
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The composition is a reworking of Vernet's earlier and smaller canvas of the same composition, painted in 1769 ¹.  The viewpoint is now taken from further back and the composition extended to the left. The ship's flag has been changed from the French tricolour to the British red ensign, perhaps suggesting that this later version was the result of a commission from a British patron. The central and right hand side of the painting are by Vernet himself, while the ship to the left and rather schematised handling of the waves are probably the work of assistants in his studio. While rare, Vernet is known to have painted more than one version of some of his compositions; a good example is his famous Baigneuses, originally painted in 1759, but which also exists in another autograph version in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nîmes ².

 

1. F. Ingersoll-Smouse, Joseph Vernet - peintre de marines, Paris 1926, vol. II, p. 18, no. 902; sold London, Christie's, 27 November 1970, lot 44, present whereabouts unknown.
2. The original was sold in these Rooms, 5 July 1995, lot 83.