1762
Joseph Vernet
1714–1789
His View of the Port of La Rochelle belongs to the royal series of the Ports of France: 24 views ordered, 15 painted.
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Painters of La Rochelle
From Joseph Vernet in 1762 to Camille Corot, Paul Signac and Albert Marquet, the harbour towers of La Rochelle have drawn painters for more than two and a half centuries.
The same motif returns again and again: the narrow harbour mouth between the Saint-Nicolas and Chain towers, the spire of the Lantern Tower and the quays of the Old Port. Vernet painted it for Louis XV, Corot during a summer stay in 1851, Signac on repeated visits from 1911, Marquet in the summer of 1920 — and Henri Callot, born in the town. Their pictures now hang from Paris to New Haven.
1851
Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
1796–1875
Three weeks in July 1851: the harbour entrance between its towers, and The Harbor of La Rochelle, shown at the Salon of 1852 and now at Yale.
The trip and the harbour entrance →
The Harbor of La Rochelle (Yale) →
1911–1920s
Paul Signac
1863–1935
The co-founder of pointillism came in 1911 and kept returning; his large Entrée du port de La Rochelle (1921) is at the Musée d’Orsay.
1920
Albert Marquet
1875–1947
A summer in La Rochelle in 1920 and several views of the harbour, among them the Quai Duperré.
c. 1905
Henri-Eugène Callot
1875–1956
Born in La Rochelle, appointed painter of the French Navy in 1921; his Port of La Rochelle is at the Clark Art Institute.
The paintings, in order
The views of La Rochelle that can be traced to a museum or a documented source:
- 1762Joseph Vernet, Vue du port de La Rochelle, prise de la petite Rive — Musée national de la Marine, Paris.
- 1762Joseph Vernet, Vue du port de Rochefort, prise du magasin des Colonies — Musée national de la Marine, Paris.
- 1851Camille Corot, The Harbor of La Rochelle, shown at the Salon of 1852 — Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.
- 1851Camille Corot, L’Entrée du port de La Rochelle — collection not identified in our sources.
- c. 1905Henri-Eugène Callot, Port of La Rochelle — Clark Art Institute, Williamstown.
- 1911Paul Signac, La Rochelle — Petit Palais, Paris.
- c. 1920Albert Marquet, The Port of La Rochelle — Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent.
- 1921Paul Signac, Entrée du port de La Rochelle — Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
- c. 1920–1928Paul Signac, Entrance to the Harbor of La Rochelle, watercolour — The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Albert Marquet
Albert Marquet (1875–1947), born in Bordeaux, spent the summer of 1920 in La Rochelle and painted the harbour from several viewpoints. In this canvas, bought at the Ghent salon of 1925, a few precise brushstrokes set the Quai Duperré and the bay in the foreground, with barrels and packages beside a moored ship; behind the harbour rises the town, dominated by a medieval tower (oil on canvas, 50 × 61 cm).
Where to see it Museum voor Schone Kunsten (MSK), Ghent (Belgium)
Status Not on display when we checked
The motif today
All these painters looked at the same few hundred metres of waterfront. The towers, the quays and the Grosse-Horloge are still there:
The painters’ exact viewpoints are not documented in our sources.
Sources: Wikipedia (Views of the Ports of France) · Yale University Art Gallery · Musée d’Orsay · The Met · Clark Art Institute · MSK Ghent · BnF · Wikipedia (Musée des Beaux-Arts). Checked 14 October 2026.