VERNET, Claude-Joseph
(b. 1714, Avignon, d. 1789, Paris)

Nocturnal Seastorm

1752
Oil on canvas, 73 x 98 cm
Private collection

In the eighteenth century interest grew in wild, untamed nature, the Scottish high moors or the mountain chains of the Alps - or dramatic scenery that had witnessed horrors and disasters. The French artist Claude-Joseph Vernet painted storms at sea and shipwrecks in this spirit.