Moonlight falls across several masted ships near a rocky shoreline in this horizontal painting. The sky fills the top three-quarters of the picture. A veil of slate-gray clouds is lit to pearl white around the crisp, full moon at the center of the composition. Patches of denim-blue sky are seen through breaks in the blanket of clouds. Moonlight reflects down the center of rippling, silvery-gray water that laps against a beach close to us, along the bottom edge of the painting. A tent is set up in the lower left corner of the composition. There, two women and one man stand looking at a…
Gallery mode Full size at the museum

Moonlight

painter Claude-Joseph Vernet (French, 1714 - 1789)

1772

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
overall: 114.94 × 163.2 cm (45 1/4 × 64 1/4 in.)
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CF
Credit line
Chester Dale Fund and Patrons' Permanent Fund
Rights
Public domain (NGA Open Access, CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed

View at the National Gallery of Art

More by Claude-Joseph Vernet

See all

More like this

See all