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Lot Essay
Signed and dated ‘1778’, this tranquil Mediterranean Port dates from Vernet’s maturity, when he was firmly established as the leading painter of marine subjects in France. It is one of only a small number of works he executed on the more costly support of copper, which lends the surface an iridescent quality and may suggest it was a specific commission from a wealthy patron. Its remarkable state of preservation allows for a full appreciation of Vernet's consummate skill at capturing glistening light effects on water.
Born in Avignon in 1714, Vernet went to Italy at the age of just eighteen to pursue a career as a historical painter; he had travelled no farther than Marseilles before he was met with the sublime stretch of the Mediterranean, reportedly inducing him to devote himself instead entirely to marine painting. In Rome, he discovered the landscape painting of Claude Lorrain, Salvator Rosa and Andrea Locatelli, whose influences can be seen throughout his oeuvre. After a twenty-year stay in Italy, Vernet was recalled to France in 1752 by Louis XV at the recommendation of the Marquis de Marigny, who had visited his studio in Rome in 1750. It was shortly after, in 1753, that Vernet was made a member of the Académie Royale in Paris and commissioned by the French Government to paint his seminal ‘Ports of France’ series, which he would undertake until 1765.
Vernet appears to have drawn inspiration from two earlier works when composing this composition. In 1768, the engraver Jacques-Philippe Le Bas produced a series entitled Douze vues d’Italie, reproducing twelve of Vernet’s paintings. These had not originally been conceived of as a series and date variously from 1750 to circa 1765. A Mediterranean port at sunset is most closely related to the Sixième vue d’Italie (fig. 1), from which it borrows both the straining figure of the young boy pulling in the evening catch and the couple conversing to the left. The ship in the middle-ground with its billowing topsail differs from that in the Sixième vue, and can be found instead in the Neuvième.
Born in Avignon in 1714, Vernet went to Italy at the age of just eighteen to pursue a career as a historical painter; he had travelled no farther than Marseilles before he was met with the sublime stretch of the Mediterranean, reportedly inducing him to devote himself instead entirely to marine painting. In Rome, he discovered the landscape painting of Claude Lorrain, Salvator Rosa and Andrea Locatelli, whose influences can be seen throughout his oeuvre. After a twenty-year stay in Italy, Vernet was recalled to France in 1752 by Louis XV at the recommendation of the Marquis de Marigny, who had visited his studio in Rome in 1750. It was shortly after, in 1753, that Vernet was made a member of the Académie Royale in Paris and commissioned by the French Government to paint his seminal ‘Ports of France’ series, which he would undertake until 1765.
Vernet appears to have drawn inspiration from two earlier works when composing this composition. In 1768, the engraver Jacques-Philippe Le Bas produced a series entitled Douze vues d’Italie, reproducing twelve of Vernet’s paintings. These had not originally been conceived of as a series and date variously from 1750 to circa 1765. A Mediterranean port at sunset is most closely related to the Sixième vue d’Italie (fig. 1), from which it borrows both the straining figure of the young boy pulling in the evening catch and the couple conversing to the left. The ship in the middle-ground with its billowing topsail differs from that in the Sixième vue, and can be found instead in the Neuvième.