(Marseille circa 1700–1782 Berlin)
A Mediterranean port at sunrise,
oil on copper, 23.8 x 31.4 cm, framed

The present work is an example of Lacroix’s mature manner, and takes as its subject a characteristic capriccio view of an idyllic Mediterranean port. The classical ruins are not identifiable but are likely influenced by those found along the coastline near Naples. In the foreground, peasant figures and fishermen are dressed in colourful costumes, and a figure with outstretched arm gestures to a companion; this is a trope we see appearing frequently in marine scenes by both Vernet and Lacroix, and the pair of viewers or tourists are meant to guide our own gaze. The limpid light of the sun, rosy clouds, and calm surface of the harbour all contribute to the harmonious mood of the work.

It is difficult to trace Lacroix de Marseille’s artistic development as nothing is known of the first twenty years of his life. He evidently travelled through Marseille, Avignon, Nîmes and Paris, before being documented in Rome in 1750 by the Marquis de Vandières, who was travelling with the architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot and the engraver Charles-Nicolas Cochin. It is likely that Lacroix was apprenticed to Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714–1789) in Rome at this time; the two were presumably working together by 1751 when Lacroix executed four copies of paintings by Vernet (both sets in the collection at Uppark, Sussex). Lacroix at his finest, as seen in the Uppark series and in the present composition, is virtually indistinguishable from Vernet himself. Over the next few years Lacroix gained an increasingly prominent position in Rome, filling the vacuum left by Vernet’s return to France in 1753. He enjoyed great popularity among English and French collectors. Information on the remainder of Lacroix’s life is fragmentary; he appears in Naples in 1757, then again in Rome. He was evidently in France when his work was exhibited at the Exposition du Colisée in 1776 and at the Salon de la Correspondence in 1780 and 1782. The critic Pahin de la Blancherie suggested that he died in Berlin in 1782, although it now seems more likely that Lacroix spent his final years in Paris.