* Claude-Joseph Vernet Avignon 1714 - 1789 Paris

Having established his reputation as a painter of marines and landscapes while in Italy, where he lived from 1734 until 1754, Vernet finally settled back in Paris in 1762 where he was commissioned by Louis XV to paint a series of ports of France. In Paris, he was treated as one of the greatest artists of his generation, and held in the highest esteem by both the public and the critics. He was believed by many to have inherited the mantle of ideal Italianate landscape painting from Claude Lorrain. Vernet set out to depict in its totality the variety of nature affected by changing times of day and weather  conditions.