An elegant party on a rocky coast, oil on canvas, 137.5 x 181 cm, framed

Provenance:
Possibly Leopold I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Florence (according to a label on the reverse);
Cavaliere Giovanni Cristiano Miller (according to a label on the reverse);
Teresa Bini or Paini, Rome (according to a label on the reverse);
European private collection.

The present painting derives from of a composition by Claude Joseph Vernet. A version with minor variations is conserved in the Prado Museum in Madrid (59 x 109 cm), and another in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg (60 x 111 cm), as well as one in the collection of G. Windham (63.5 x 110.4 cm). The existence of a number of paintings of the same composition testifies to the success of Vernet’s inventions. Vernet’s works were commissioned by patrons who wanted to have examples of the new genre of landscapes developed by the artist during his stay in Italy (1734–1753) and described by Emilie Beck as the “pictorial translation of the emotional experience that one faces in front of a landscape”.

On a partially legible label on the back of the stretcher, interesting information regarding the provenance of the painting and its passages from one collection to another can be found. The inscription mentions a probable first collocation of the painting together with another view of Naples in the “Galleria del Gran Ducha in Firenze”, of Leopold (1765–1790), known as an important patron of arts. According to the label, the painting passed to a baron and then to the Cavaliere Giovanni Cristiano Miller. According to the inscription, the painting then passed to Teresa Bini or Paini (?), who lived close to Miller on the Trinità dei Monti in Rome. Miller lived in Rome in the via Gregoriana in a “palazzino” of the Mignanelli and was in the service of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, first under Francis Stephen and then under Leopold, by whom he was entrusted with the administration of the territories. He had arrived in Rome in 1773, entering the services of Pope Pius VI Braschi and working as inspector of finances until 1787.