Shipwreck

Shipwrecks were a common theme in Claude-Joseph Vernet’s paintings, linking the tragedy of the central object – the desperate struggle of the castaways for their salvation – to the dramatic atmosphere and light. In this sense, his painting proclaims the romantic conception of nature, as a sublime space with a greatness untameable by man. The landscape is, in its beauty and its tragedy, a boundless source of emotion. The painting belonged to the collection of Queen Carlota Joaquina de Bourbon and, as is frequently the case with Vernet’s paintings, forms a set with another piece of the same dimensions, which represents the gathering of nets in a port.