Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714 - 1789) was a French painter. He was born in Avignon. When only fourteen years of age he aided his father, Antoine Vernet, a skilled decorative painter, in the most important parts of his work. The panels of sedan chairs, however, could not satisfy his ambition, and Vernet started for Rome. The sight of the whales at Marseilles and his voyage thence to Civitavecchia (Papal States' main port on the Tyrrhenian Sea) made a...