CLAUDE JOSEPH VERNET (AVIGNON 1714-1789 PARIS)

Lot 34
11.06.2025 00:00UTC +01:00
Classic
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
Buyer Premiumsee on Website%
ID 1437176
Lot 34 | CLAUDE JOSEPH VERNET (AVIGNON 1714-1789 PARIS)
Estimate value
€ 150 000 – 250 000
CLAUDE JOSEPH VERNET (AVIGNON 1714-1789 PARIS)
Marine par temps de calme : Brouillard
signé et daté 'J. Vernet . f . / . 1788 .' (vers le bas, à droite, sur le ponton)
huile sur toile
70 x 96,9 cm (17 ½ x 38 1/8 in.)




Provenance

Vraisemblablement commandé à l'artiste par M. Barbeau, en 1787 (avec son pendant, Rivière) (selon F. Ingersoll-Smouse, 1926, voir infra).
Chez Jean-Baptiste Pierre Le Brun (1748-1813), Paris ; sa vente, rue de Cléry 96, en la salle du Citoyen Lebrun, Paris, 11 janvier 1793, lot 12 (avec son pendant, Rivière).
Comte Gabriel d'Arjuzon (1761-1851), ancien pair de France ; sa vente après décès, rue Rumfort 14, Paris, 2-4 mars 1852, (Me Seigneur), lot 24 (avec son pendant au lot 25, Rivière).
John Wombwel ; sa vente, hôtel Drouot, Paris, 24 mai 1886, (Me Chevallier), lot 45.
M. A. M. Nicolaeff, Saint-Pétersbourg ; sa vente, hôtel Drouot, Paris, 10 février 1890, (Me Chevallier), lot 22.
Vente anonyme, hôtel Drouot, Paris, 16 juin 1965, (Me Bondu), lot non spécifié.
Chez Galerie Cailleux, Paris ;
Acquis auprès de celle-ci, en 1968 ;
Puis par descendance dans la famille.



Literature

[Probablement] L. Lagrange, Joseph Vernet et la peinture au XVIIIe siècle, coll. Les Vernet, Paris, 1864, p. 358, n°316.
F. Ingersoll-Smouse, Joseph Vernet. Peintre de marine. 1714-1789. Étude critique suivie d'une catalogue raisonné de son oeuvre peint, Paris, 1926, II, p. 43, n°1177.
E. Beck-Saiello, "Car c’est moy que je peins". Stratégies familiales et professionnelles de Joseph Vernet à travers l’étude critique de son livre de raison et de sa correspondance, Trocy-en-Multien, 2025, II, p. 464.



Further details

CLAUDE JOSEPH VERNET (1714-1789), A FOGGY SCENE, OIL ON CANVAS, SIGNED AND DATED (LOWER RIGHT, ON THE PONTOON)

Executed in 1788, this painting is one of the last dated works by the artist, who died the following year. The composition bears witness to his impressive mastery and his ability to render with precision the effects of sea spray in those marine landscapes that he spent almost all his life observing. The painter from Avignon went to Rome before the age of twenty to specialise in marine paintings, and on his return to France, twenty years later, became a ‘marine painter’, a rare classification that stood outside the usual Académie genres. In fact, this epithet had only been given to one other, Matthieu van Plattenberg (circa 1608-1660), almost a century earlier. It was under this title that he produced one of the most ambitious official programmes of the eighteenth century, his famous series of French ports, a precise topographical study of the major ports (Marseille, Bordeaux, Toulon, La Rochelle, etc.) and a virtuoso expression of his art.

The present painting was executed after his eleven years in the service of the Crown, revealing all the talent that he had accrued over a lifetime. Here, the artist is more concerned with the atmosphere rather than with the reality of the landscape, though his composition combines various elements that he would have known from life, such as this lighthouse lost in the sea mist, vaguely reminiscent of the Genoa breakwater. The historian Ingersoll-Smouse, the painter's biographer, indicates that this painting was commissioned by a certain Barbeau, who is difficult to identify, before joining the collection of Count Gabriel d'Arjuzon (1761-1851), a peer of France and chamberlain to the Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821) (see F. Ingersoll-Smouse, 1926, op. cit., no. 1177).
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
11.06.2025 – 11.06.2025
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Email
Buyer Premium see on Website
Conditions of purchaseConditions of purchase

More from Creator

CLAUDE JOSEPH VERNET (AVIGNON 1714-1789 PARIS)
CLAUDE JOSEPH VERNET (AVIGNON 1714-1789 PARIS)
€100 000
CLAUDE JOSEPH VERNET (AVIGNON 1714-1789 PARIS)
CLAUDE JOSEPH VERNET (AVIGNON 1714-1789 PARIS)
€60 000
CIRCLE OF CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET (AVIGNON 1714-1789 PARIS)
CIRCLE OF CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET (AVIGNON 1714-1789 PARIS)
$7 000
STUDIO OF CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET (AVIGNON 1714-1789 PARIS)
STUDIO OF CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET (AVIGNON 1714-1789 PARIS)
$30 000
FOLLOWER OF CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET
FOLLOWER OF CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET
£30 000
ÉCOLE FRANÇAISE VERS 1770, ATELIER DE CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET
ÉCOLE FRANÇAISE VERS 1770, ATELIER DE CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET
€26 000
CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET (Avignon 1714-1789 Paris)
CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET (Avignon 1714-1789 Paris)
$8 000
CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET (AVIGNON 1714-1789 PARIS)
CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET (AVIGNON 1714-1789 PARIS)
£300 000

Related terms