A rocky harbour by moonlight with a peasant couple conversing in the foreground

Details

Claude-Joseph Vernet (Avignon 1714-1789 Paris)
A rocky harbour by moonlight with a peasant couple conversing in the foreground
oil on canvas, unlined
12¾ x 15 7/8 in. (32.4 x 40.3 cm.)

Provenance

The State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow (inventory no. 776, according to a Cyrillic typed label on the reverse, and with painted inventory no. on the stretcher), after 1917.
Anonymous sale [The Property of a Lady]; Christie's, London, 29 November 1968, lot 31 [one of a pair with the previous lot] (3,500 gns. to the family of the present owner).

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Lot Essay

As with the previous lot, the present work has an interesting Russian provenance. According to a typed label on the reverse it was in the State Museum for Fine Arts, formerly known as the Alexander III Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. It was renamed after the Revolution, and then renamed again in 1937 as the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Although the two pictures were not originally a pair, they may have been united when, following the Revolution, numerous paintings from the Hermitage were relocated to other museums around the country.

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