The Shipwreck (Vernet)

For the 1773 painting by Vernet, see A Shipwreck in Stormy Seas.

The Shipwreck is a 1772 maritime painting by the French artist Claude-Joseph Vernet. Amidst a storm a ship is being wrecked on a rocky coastline. Crew members and passengers attempt to save themselves by climbing down a rope from the Mast to the shore.^[1] It was a forerunner of Romanticism, a contrast to the ascendant Neoclassicism of the era.^[2]

The Shipwreck
Artist	Claude-Joseph Vernet
Year	1772
Type	Oil on canvas, landscape painting
Dimensions	113.5 cm × 162.9 cm (44.7 in × 64.1 in)
Location	National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

It was commissioned by the English art collector Lord Arundell of Wardour for his country house Wardour Castle in Wiltshire. Today the painting is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C..^[3] His grandson Horace Vernet borrowed stylistically from the painting for his homage to his grandfather Joseph Vernet Tied to a Mast During a Storm, exhibited at the Salon of 1822 at the Louvre.^[4]