'' A Mediterranean Port'' or ''A Sea Port by Moonlight'' refers to two 1771 paintings of the same subject by the French painter

Claude Joseph Vernet Claude-Joseph Vernet (14 August 17143 December 1789) was a French painter. His son, Antoine Charles Horace Vernet, was also a painter. Life and work Vernet was born in Avignon. When only fourteen years of age he aided his father, Antoine Vernet ...

. They are now in the

Museo Soumaya The Museo Soumaya is a private museum in Mexico City and a non-profit cultural institution with two museum buildings in Mexico City — Plaza Carso and Plaza Loreto. It has over 66,000 works from 30 centuries of art including sculptures from Pre- ...

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...

and the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

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History

The two paintings form part of a series of fifteen works by Vernet showing port scenes. They were commissioned by Madame du Barry, who was trying to replace Madame de Pompadour as the greatest art patron among

Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ver ...

's lovers. Vernet was one of a circle of artists which gathered around du Barry. The paintings were intended for a pavilion at the Chateau de Louveciennes. They resemble the same painter's ''Night: Mediterranean Coastal Scene with Fishermen and Boats'' (1753).

Description

In the foreground, a group of people is gathered around the heat of a fire. The objects nearby reaffirm the environment in which they are found, and in parallel there are several people fishing. The colors and textures present reflect a calm environment. In the background, the figure of the moon predominates, prolonged thanks to the pale light that is reflected on the tenuous waves of the liquid surface of the sea and among the clouds. There is in fact a contrast of lights in the painting: the burning orange of the fure on the right and the cold light of the night on the left.Héctor Palhares Meza, "Regalo de Luis XV a su bella y joven amante: Puerto mediterráneo de Claude-Joseph Vernet", in Revistas Museo Soumaya, nº 5, June 2010 (Spanish)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mediterranean Port, A Paintings in the Museo Soumaya Paintings in the Louvre by French artists 1771 paintings Maritime paintings Moon in art Paintings by Claude-Joseph Vernet