Palatial Size Oil On Canvas Painting of Tivoli Gardens and the Fountain After Claude Vernet

A magnificent painting depicting travellers before the falls of Tivoli outside of Rome, with the Temple of Vesta in the background.

A coach painter’s son, Claude-Joseph Vernet first studied with his father, then with a painter in Aix-en-Provence. Supported by some of the region’s art patrons, the young artist went to Rome in 1734, where he studied the works of Claude Lorrain and trained under a follower of Salvator Rosa and a French marine painter. By 1740, Vernet’s landscape and seascape clients included artists Placido Costanzi and Sebastiano Conca and important Frenchmen, Italians, and especially the English. From 1746 until his death, he regularly sent pictures to the Salon, where they were enthusiastically received. Returning to France in 1753, Vernet became a full member of the Academie Royale. His fame was assured when Louis XV commissioned him to paint a series of ports of France; assisted by Pierre-Jacques Voltaire, Vernet traveled around France for nine years. After 1762 he settled in Paris and painted highly successful storm scenes, shipwrecks, and moonlit night-pieces.

It is known that Vernet painted more than twenty copies of this painting in all sizes during his lifetime. There is a label on the back of the painting under the title of “Messrs. Costa and Conti, artists, Number 1818 Via Dei Bardi (studio on the first floor), the largest collection in Florence of Original Ancient and Modern paintings as well as copies of all the celebrated Masters.” They were in business in Florence before 1850, and their business name appears in many travel guides of the period.

Dimensions: 80″ ( 203 cm ) W  x 62″ ( 153 cm ) H

Ref. DK VR10886