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By the 1770s Vernet's reputation as a leading painter of landscapes and marines was firmly established throughout Europe. The Shipwreck is a highly characteristic work and moreover, the type of scene that had a special appeal for later eighteenth-century sensibilities, with its physical and emotional drama and the pathos of man's futile struggle against the overwhelming power of the elements. All Vernet's skills as a painter are displayed here, from the beautifully drawn and densely modeled figures in the foreground, to the vigorous impasto of the crashing waves, to the rapid, sketchy scumbling of the clouds.
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