A coastal landscape with figures by the shore

Lacroix de Marseille was hugely popular with both Italian and French clients, yet suprisingly little is known about his life, especially of his first fifty years, as the first documentary reference to the artist dates from 1750 when the Marquis de Vandires met him in Rome. From the clear stylistic links between the two artists, it has been assumed that Lacroix was a pupil of Claude-Joseph Vernet and they were evidently working side by side in Rome in 1751 when Lacroix executed four copies, now at Uppark, Sussex, of four works by Vernet painted in that year, also at Uppark. Lacroix's copies are almost indistinguishable from Vernet's prototypes, which may help to explain why he only emerges from obscurity after his and Vernet's paths separated in 1753, Vernet returning to France leaving Lacroix in Rome. Lacroix was in Naples in 1757 and may have spent over a decade there before returning to France, where he is recorded in 1776 and 1780. He died in 1782, in Berlin according to Pahin de la Blancherie.