VERNET Claude - Joseph (Ecole de) 1714 - 1789

Storm in the port of Livorno. Original oil on canvas (small accident and gap in the upper left). H. 47,5 - L. 65 cm. Remake of the composition by Claude Joseph Vernet (100 x 137 cm) from the former collection of Guillaume d'Orange (1764) in the Hague Museum (Cf. Florence Ingersoll - Smouse, Joseph Vernet. Catalog raisonné, n° 200, Pl. XIX n° 42 - Paris 1926). The author refers to "numerous replicas" of this composition and its counterpart Les Cascatelles de Tivoli (no. 1299, fig. 41), including those of similar dimensions to our version (54 x 64 cm) in the former B. Kraemer collection in Paris (idm. Kraemer of Paris (idm n°469, p. 70). Among Claude Joseph Vernet's "imitators and copyists", Madame Ingersoll - Smouse cites first and foremost his brother Jean - Antoine, later Ignace (1716 - before 1780), who stayed with Claude Joseph in Rome between 1745 and 1750 - the period in which Tempête dans le Port de Livourne (1748) was painted, a city in which "he copied Joseph's paintings" (Cf. idem p. 33).