Eight Studies of Figures and a Ship at Sea

Art Historical Context

Claude-Joseph Vernet’s “Eight Studies of Figures and a Ship at Sea” provides an intimate look at the artist’s working method during the early decades of the eighteenth century. Executed in pen and black ink with brown wash on greenish laid paper, the small sheet (13.4 × 21.2 cm) gathers quick notations of sailors, onlookers, and a vessel under sail. These rapid sketches reveal how Vernet observed everyday maritime activity and tested the placement of figures against the horizon, a practice central to his later, large-scale marine paintings. Vernet, celebrated for his luminous seascapes that captured both the beauty and peril of the sea, used such drawings to explore light, movement, and human scale. The economical strokes and layered washes demonstrate his command of economy—conveying wind-filled sails or a gesturing figure with only a few confident lines. The greenish paper lends a subtle atmospheric tone that anticipates the coastal light he would render so memorably in oil. Now in the Joseph F. McCrindle Collection at the National Gallery of Art, this sheet invites visitors to appreciate the quiet, preparatory moments behind Vernet’s celebrated marine scenes and the enduring appeal of drawings that preserve an artist’s first thoughts.

About the Artist

Claude-Joseph Vernet · 1714–1789

Claude-Joseph Vernet and his direct descendants are the last representatives of the Avignon School which had provided a continuous line of artists since the 14th century. It originated at the time when Bernard de Goth, Archbishop of Bordeaux, became pope in the name of Clement V and transferred the seat of the papacy to Avignon where he established an influential artistic community. Comment on wor...