Claude Joseph Vernet

Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714, Avignon - 1789, Paris), also named Joseph Vernet, was a French landscape and marine painter. He was the son of a decorative painter. He worked during a long period in Rome from 1734 to 1753. He was inspired by the French painter Claude Lorrain and the Italian painter Salvator Rosa. Vernet’s shipwrecks and sunsets show a subtle observation of light and atmosphere. Along with Hubert Robert he developed a new taste for idealized and sentimentalized landscapes. After returning to Paris he entered the French Royal Academy and was commissioned by King Louis XV to paint ports of France (a series of 15 ports) which demonstrate an interesting record of 18th-century life.