During the 18th century it was common for artists to travel, both to seek inspiration and embrace opportunity. Claude-Joseph Vernet was the most celebrated French view painter of the period. In 1734 he relocated to Rome, where he spent almost 20 years and earned an international reputation. Vernet’s view paintings (or ‘vedute’) were particularly sought after by travellers on the and European rulers. His contrasting pair of paintings, A Landscape at Sunset and A Shipwreck in Stormy Seas, were originally commissioned for the King of Poland, Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski (1732–1798), whose official court painter at the time was Bernardo Bellotto. Having trained with his uncle Canaletto in Venice, Bellotto went on to enjoy a successful career at the royal courts in Dresden, Vienna, Munich and Warsaw, glorifying the great capitals of Europe through his highly original topographical views.
Room 40
18th-century painting in Europe
Paintings in this room
Sharp and angular, the Saxon fortress of Königstein, about 25 miles southeast of Dresden, is silhouetted against a pale sky. The artist, Bellotto, was from Venice, and he has applied the traditions of Venetian view painting – a high level of detail, the large scale – to this northern landscape. I...
According to the Old Testament Book of Exodus, the Israelites and their flock were thirsty after failing to find water during their long journey through Egypt. God instructed Moses to stand in front of the people with the elders of Israel and strike the rock of Horeb with his staff. A fresh strea...
According to the Old Testament Book of Numbers the Israelites, tired of walking through the desert in search of the Promised Land, criticised both Moses (their leader) and God. God punished them by sending a plague of venomous snakes to bite them, causing the death of many. When the Israelites re...
This is one of two paintings originally commissioned as a pair by Stanislas Augustus, King of Poland, in June or July 1772. However, concerned that the King was slow to pay, Vernet instead sold the pictures to the British officer and East India Company official Lord Clive (known as Clive of India...
On the banks of a wide meandering river, men and women are catching fish. Vernet has used the brightly lit woman in red and the jutting tree as devices to draw our eye into the composition. A man with a rod and a basket of fish sits next to the river with his back to a large mossy rock. His dog h...
This Italian coastal scene bathed in soft sunlight is influenced by the port scenes of Claude, though much of the effect in Vernet’s painting depends upon its picturesque human detail. Two fashionably dressed ladies have been brought down to the shore by a Hungarian hussar, who is drawing their a...
This is one of a pair of seascapes, originally commissioned on behalf of the King of Poland, that the British officer and East India Company official Lord Clive (known as Clive of India) bought from Vernet in 1773.Originally known as ‘Tempête’ (Storm), it depicts a rocky shoreline buffeted by a v...