Navy in storm
Oil on canvas, cm 54 x 68
With frame, cm 63 x 77
Signed in the lower right and dated 1866
The son of an artillery man, Philippe Tanneur was born in Marseille in 1795. His life was absolutely adventurous: in his youth he was a seaman and roamed the seas on the dreaded ships of the corsairs. After a major injury, he decided to radically change his lifestyle by opening a small painting studio in the port area of Marseille. Although self-taught, the artist quickly established himself and participated in some of the most famous French national exhibitions from the mid-1920s: Tanneur exhibited his works at the Paris Salon of 1827 and later at that of 1829, Gaining a great success of public and critics. It was on this last occasion that the pictorial production of Tanneur attracted the attention and interest of King Charles X, who sent the artist together with the Crown troops to Algiers in order to paint the landing and the highlights of the battles between the French army and the Algerian soldiers. His great talent earned him the protection of other leading figures in the political scene at the time, those of Louis Philippe or of Tsar Nicholas I, but his very difficult character made him lose one after another. On a trip to America with his family, his ship, the steamer Humbolt, was shipwrecked near Halifax on 18 December 1855; almost all the passengers were saved and the artist painted a canvas depicting this tragic event. From that moment on, the theme of the shipwreck or the navy in storm enters prepotently in his visual imagination, as it appears also witnessed by this beautiful painting, In which tragic personal experiences meet with the romantic ideal of representing a beautiful but fatal nature for man.