Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Preview image of work. oil on canvas, Shipwreck 1090

1908.24

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Shipwreck

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Artists

[formerly attributed to Claude Joseph Vernet]; [attributed to Robert Freebairn]

Title

Shipwreck

Creation Date

1790

Century

18th century

Dimensions

47 in. x 68 in. (119.4 cm. x 172.7 cm.)

Object Type

painting

Creation Place

Europe, United Kingdom

Medium and Support

oil on canvas

Credit Line

Gift of Mrs. Helen M. Shepley

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

Accession Number

1908.24

This late-eighteenth century monumental painting of a shipwreck offers heart-wrenching descriptions of suffering in a coastal storm. Its dramatic expanses of dark sky and wind-lashed sea, barely contained by the gold frame, present a stark contrast to the idyllic and melancholic representations of evening light seen in similar paintings of the time and mark a departure from the didactic storytelling in paintings of the more distant past. This work has recently been re-attributed to British painter Robert Freebairn, who, around the time this work was painted, studied painting in Rome and sent back images of the Roman landscape and sea to the British Royal Academy.