Théodore Gudin (1802-1880)

Théodore GUDIN can afford to write these words since, by joining the US Navy, he took part in a fisheries surveillance mission in the Grand Banks and witnessed the sinking of three hundred ships. This explains, in addition to talent, the striking luminosity, the realistic movement of the sea, and the knowledge of sailing and manoeuvres that Gudin offers us through this work.

Of course, we owe this technical mastery to his return to France in 1822, when he became a pupil of Horace Vernet and then Anne-Louis Girodet. He entered Girodet's studio, then frequented those of Antoine Gros and Jacques-Louis David.

Gudin painted this early work at a time when he had already been under the protection of the Duke of Orléans, the future Louis Philippe, for several years.

We are therefore not the first to admire his compositions. In 1827, he was noticed by King Charles X at the Salon, in which he had been participating since 1822, and in 1830 he became the official painter of the Navy. Specialising in the depiction of great naval battles and shipwreck scenes, Louis-Philippe commissioned him to produce ninety paintings for the museum at Versailles to commemorate the great episodes in French naval history.