Claude-Joseph Vernet

Exhibited by Richard Green

Material Oil on canvas

Dimensions 69.9 × 96.8 cm

Price Available upon inquiry

Status Vetted

About the Work

This painting was commissioned by a Monsieur Barbeau in 1787, together with a pendant,

Rivière, which stayed with it until the latter half of the nineteenth century. The pair was recorded in Vernet’s Livre de Raison for 1788 as Pr Mr Barbeau deux tableaux de trois pieds de large sur deux pieds deux pouces de haut.

By 1793 Marine par temps de calme: brouillard was in the possession of the artist and art dealer Jean Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun (1748-1813), great-great nephew of Louis XIV’s history painter Charles Le Brun (1619-1690) and scoundrelly husband of the portrait painter Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun.

Before 1852 it was in the collection of the politician and administrator Comte Gabriel d’Arjuzon (1761-1851), who served as Grand Chamberlain to the Emperor Napoleon’s brother Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland.

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Provenance

Probably commissioned by M. Barbeau in 1787, with a pendant, Rivière
Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun (1748-1813), Paris;
his sale, on the premises of Citoyen Lebrun, 96 Rue de Cléry, Paris, 11th January 1793, lot 12
(with the pendant, Rivière)
Comte Gabriel d’Arjuzon (1761-1851);
his estate sale, Me Siegneur, 14 Rue Rumfort, Paris, 2nd
-4
th March 1852, lot 24 (with the pendant
Rivière as lot 25)
John Wombwell;
his sale, Me Chevallier, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 24th May 1886, lot 45
Anonymous sale, Me Bondu, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 16th June 1965, lot not specified
Galerie Cailleux, Paris;
where acquired in 1968 by a private collector, Europe;
by descent in an aristocratic private collection, Europe

Literature

Probably ‘Livre de Raison de Joseph Vernet’ covering the period 1764-74 and 1788, MS 2322,
folio 122, 1788 (Bibliothèques Avignon): Pr Mr Barbeau deux tableaux de trois pieds de large sur deux pieds deux pouces de haut1
Probably Louis Lagrange, Joseph Vernet et la peinture du XVIIIe siècle avec le texte des Livres de Raison,
Paris 1864, p.358, no.316 in the Livres de Raison
Florence Ingersoll-Smouse, Joseph Vernet, Paris 1926, vol. II, p.43, no.1177
Emilie Beck-Saiello, “Car c’est moy que je peins”. Strategies familiales et professionelles de Joseph Vernet à travers l’étude critique de son livre de raison et de sa correspondence, Trocy-en-Multien 2025, vol. II, p.464