Philippe Tanneur (Marseille, 1795 - 1878)
Stormy Seascape
Oil on canvas, 54 x 68 cm
With frame, 63 x 77 cm
Signed lower right and dated 1866
The son of an artilleryman, Philippe Tanneur was born in Marseille in 1795. His life was absolutely adventurous: in his youth, he was a cabin boy and roamed the seas on the feared corsair ships. Following a major injury, however, he decided to radically change his lifestyle, opening a small painting studio near the port area of Marseille. Although self-taught, the artist quickly established himself and participated in some of the most famous French national exhibitions starting from the mid-1820s: Tanneur exhibited his works at the Paris Salon in 1827 and subsequently at the Salon of 1829, achieving great public and critical success. It was on this latter occasion that Tanneur's pictorial output captured the attention and interest of King Charles X, who sent the artist along with the crown troops to Algiers in order to paint the landing and the salient moments of the battles between the French army and the Algerian soldiers. His great talent earned him the protection of other prominent figures in the political landscape of the time, such as Louis Philippe or Tsar Nicholas I, but his very difficult character caused him to lose them one after the other. During a trip to America with his family, his ship, the steamship Humbolt, shipwrecked on December 18, 1855, near Halifax; almost all the passengers were saved, and the artist painted a canvas depicting this tragic event. From that moment on, the theme of shipwreck or stormy seascape forcefully entered his visual imagination, as evidenced also by this beautiful painting, within which tragic personal experiences meet with the romantic ideal of representing a nature that is splendid but fatal for man.
