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).
This painting, originally known as ‘Calme’, was painted first. It shows an imaginary harbour as fishermen return with their catch on a tranquil summer’s evening. The golden setting sun is at the centre of the composition above the misty horizon, its light illuminating the undersides of the clouds and reflecting off the ripples on the calm sea. A ship has just arrived – it is just possible to make out the tiny figures on its mast yards furling the sails – and is being towed by two launches into the harbour.
‘Calme’ and its pair ‘Tempête’ are two of Vernet’s greatest marine paintings, and the only great pair of marine views by him in a British public collection.
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Humphrey Wine, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Eighteenth Century French Paintings’, London 2018; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
This is an eighteenth-century French frame, made in the Louis XVI style for Vernet’s A Landscape at Sunset. Crafted in oak, it was originally water-gilt. Featuring a flat top fillet, it showcases the period’s iconic fluted hollow with acanthus-leaf corners, followed by a row of pearls, and a gilt frieze adorned with a lamb’s-tongue sight edge.
When Vernet sold A Landscape at Sunset and A Shipwreck in Stormy Seas to Lord Clive in 1773, he wrote to Clive and described the frames as being in ‘straightforward and noble taste’. He proposed to price them at no more than two hundred francs each. The frames were later restored in England, with the gilding entirely redone.
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These two paintings, originally known as ‘Calme’ and ‘Tempête’ (Calm and Storm), were commissioned as a pair by Stanislas Augustus, King of Poland, in June or July 1772. However, Vernet instead sold them to the British officer and East India Company official Lord Clive (known as Clive of India), who had been impressed by two similar seascapes the artist had exhibited at the Paris Salon the previous year.
‘Calme’, which Vernet painted first, shows an imaginary harbour as fishermen return with their catch on a tranquil summer evening. ‘Tempête’ depicts a rocky shoreline buffeted by a violent sea storm. Two ships roll in the giant swell while another lies shattered against the rocks.
These are two of Vernet’s greatest marine paintings and the type of work for which he was most famous in his day. They are the only great pair of marine views by him in a British public collection.
