Follower of Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) “Fishing Por...

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Follower of Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789)

“Fishing Port beneath Cliffs c 1750,” O.O.C., 104cms x 159cms (41” x 59”). (1)

A lively conversation piece, Fishing Port beneath Cliffs is a painting full of activity and incident, with sailors, fishermen and townsfolk bustling about on the foreshore of a fishing port. Although a decorative and picturesque ‘veduta’, the painting also depicts activities vital to the economic survival of a fishing port. The beach is a hive of activity, with boat being launched, and nets being trawled, or drawn up onto the sand. The main activity takes place in the foreground, where, watched by onlookers, men pull a seine net onto dry land. Scattered around on the beach are barrels, nets and anchors. Baskets with fish are laid out, with buyers and sellers gathered around. In the distance, beneath cliffs, are improvised tents and sunshades. Smoke rises from a camp fire, over which a cooking pot has been suspended. Steps, doors and windows are carved into the cliff face, providing homes for the fishing community. On the cliff tops can be seen towers and fortifications. To the right--evoking the palace of Diocletian at Split--large arches with buttresses provide shelter for boats. What looks initially like a pentimenti—the prow of a fishing craft on the shore—is in fact the shadow of a boat, partly obliterated through centuries of cleaning and re-varnishing. Many elements in this painting point to Claude-Joseph Vernet, a French eighteenth-century artist famed for his Claudean port and coastal scenes of Naples, and the Amalfi Coast, into which he wove imaginative elements such as castles, cliffs and headlands. The figures, boats, towers, cliffs, and lighting in this work are all reminiscent of Vernet, and as the painting is of good quality, it is likely to be by a follower of his, or possibly from his studio.
Dr. Peter Murray, 2024