Evening: Harbour Scene with Boats being unloaded and Spectators
Claude-Joseph Vernet (Avignon 1714 – Paris 1789)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1751 (signed and dated)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
991 x 1346 mm (39 x 53 in)
Place of origin
Rome
Order this imageCollection
Uppark House and Garden, West Sussex (Accredited Museum)
NT 138286.2
Caption
Although this set of the Four Times of Day now hangs at Uppark, along with copies of three of them by Lacroix de Marseille, the date of 1751 on both sets indicates that the Vernets were not the ones commissioned by Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh in April of that year - which were apparently never executed - but those commissioned the year before by his wife's brother, Benjamin Lethieullier. Evening represents an imaginary harbour, with fortifications and orientals reminiscent of those of the port at Livorno (Leghorn) through which so many British making the Grand Tour entered Italy.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Evening: Harbour Scene with Boats being unloaded and Spectators by Claude-Joseph Vernet (Avignon 1714 – Paris 1789), signed, bottom right: Jospeh Vernet f. Romae/1751. From the set 'The Four Times of Day' and was once recorded as 'Morning'. A golden-toned picture with figures on a jetty at the right and others in rowing boats.
Provenance
Commissioned by Benjamin Lethieulllier (1728/9-1797); with Fetherstonaugh family at Uppark, and by descent; acquired by HM Treasury in 1965 in part payment of death duties and transferred to the National Trust, September 1990
Credit line
Uppark, The Fetherstonhaugh Collection (National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
Joseph Vernet f Roma/1751 (signed and dated on stem of boat, bottom centre)
Makers and roles
Claude-Joseph Vernet (Avignon 1714 – Paris 1789) , artist
Exhibition history
Turner and the Sea, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich , 2013 - 2014, no.6 In Trust for the Nation, National Gallery, London, 1995 - 1996, no.56c Souvenirs of the Grand Tour, Wildenstein, London, 1982, no.48
References
Turner and the Sea, Royal Museums Greenwich, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 22 November 2013 – 21 April 2014 and Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, USA, 31 May -1 September 2014, 6