The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 29, 2025

The Waterfalls at Tivoli

1737
(French, 1714–1789)
France, 18th century
oil on canvas
Framed: 142.5 x 192.5 x 9 cm (56 1/8 x 75 13/16 x 3 9/16 in.); Unframed: 123.2 x 172.6 cm (48 1/2 x 67 15/16 in.)
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1984.175
Location: 216B French and German

Description

Likely Vernet's first major work during his study in Rome, this landscape demonstrates his signature style. Vernet preferred and is remembered for marine subjects and water is also a central theme in this painting. Vernet became the predominant French landscape painter of the 18th century, contributing to a long French tradition. While in Rome, he absorbed the Italian tradition of dramatic, rugged landscape paintings, established by Salvador Rosa in the 1600s. This influence is reflected in Vernet's presentation of the craggy rock formations and cascades that made Tivoli, a small town twenty miles east of Rome, famous. Vernet here synthesizes this style with the calmer pastoral mode, more typical of the French landscape tradition, with its roots in the work of Claude Lorrain. Vernet generally inserted elements of humanity in his work, here evident in the touches of civilization in the background and the fishermen in the foreground. Vernet enjoyed considerable popularity, evidenced by the fact that Napoleon's brother Lucien Bonaparte held this painting as a part of his impressive collection.
  • -1812
    Prince Lucien Bonaparte (1775-1840), Ludlow, England
    By 1815
    William Buchanan
    March 14, 1825
    Sale: Lapeyrière, Paris, France, March 14, 1825
    Boursault, sold, Paris, May 1832, through H. Artaria to Edmund Higginson
    1832-1846
    Edmund Higginson, 1802 - 1871 (Saltmarshe Castle, England) (sold, London, June 4-6, 1846)
    -1853
    Lord Charles Vere Townshend, 1785 - 1853, upon his death, held in trust by the estate
    1853-1854
    Estate of Lord Charles Vere Townshend (sold, London, May 13, 1854);
    -1949
    Frost & Reed (London, England), sold to Siegfried Sassoon, 1949
    1949-1984
    Siegfried Sassoon (sold, Sotheby's, London, 1984, to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1984-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Choix de gravures…de la galeire de Lucien Bonaparte, 1812, Stanza !V (no. 36).
    Buchanan, William. Memoirs of Painting: With a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England Since the French Revolution. London: Printed for R. Ackerman, 1824. p. 293, no. 172.
    Ingersoll-Smouse, Florence. Joseph Vernet, peintre de marine, 1714-1789; étude critique suivie d'un catalogue raisonné de son œuvre peint. Paris: É. Bignou, 1926. p. 98. No 2055
    Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1984.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 72, no. 2 (1985). cat. No. 21 www.jstor.org
    Dempsey, James H. “The Annual Report for 1984.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 72, no. 4 (1985). cover, p. 242 www.jstor.org
    Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Pierre Rosenberg, Marion C. Stewart, and Thierry Lefrançois. French Paintings 1500-1825, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. San Francisco: The Museum, 1987. p. 335, fig. 1
    Cleveland Museum of Art, and Alan Chong. European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993. p. 250
    Ciardi, Roberto Paolo, Antonio Pinelli, and Cinzia Maria Sicca. Pittura toscana e pittura europea nel Secolo dei lumi: atti del convegno, Pisa, Domus galilaeana 3-4 dicembre 1990. Firenze: Studio per edizioni scelte, 1993. pl. 158
    Rosenberg, Pierre, Renaud Temperini, and Jean-Pierre Caillet. La peinture française. Paris: Mengès, 2001. P. 479
  • Year in Review for 1984. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 3-May 5, 1985).
  • {{cite web|title=The Waterfalls at Tivoli|url=false|author=Claude-Joseph Vernet|year=1737|access-date=29 April 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1984.175