The Entrance to the Port of Marseille

In 1753 Louis XV, through the marquis de Marigny, director of the royal buildings, ordered from Joseph Vernet a series of views of the ports of France. The instructions asked for accuracy, and for foregrounds that showed the work and customs of each place. Vernet began in Marseille, and this entrance to the harbour, signed and dated there in 1754, is one of the first two pictures of the series.

The city is seen from the hill facing it, with the tower of Fort Saint-Jean on the left and the Saint-Nicolas citadel on the right, guarding the narrow mouth of the port. The foreground is full of Marseille life, bathers undressing, strollers with telescopes, dancers, men in Turkish dress smoking pipes. Vernet put himself in the picture too. He sits at the left, drawing beside his son, while his wife in a yellow dress brings over Annibal Camoux, a Marseille fisherman famous in his day for his great age, said to be well over 100.