Conisbee noted that 'In general it is among the painters of Vernet's own time that we should look for his direct inspiration. Painters such as Andrea Locatelli (1693/5-1741) or Jan Frans van Bloemen, called Orizzonte (1662-1749) [Van Bloemen], to take only two examples, were already supplying both Italian patrons and tourists of all nationalities with their arcadian visions, based on the Italian scene'.
'It is generally accepted that Vernet met Richard Wilson in Rome in 1752 and encouraged him to become a landscape painter, perhaps confirming advice already received from Francesco Zuccarelli in Venice. One very Vernet-like marine painting by Wilson has already come to light [P157?], but in general his technique is more oily and his observations less precisely rendered than those of Vernet. But some lost views of Rome painted by Vernet for John Bouverie in 1745, and two lost or destroyed pictures of Tivoli and Ariccia painted in 1752 for Sir William Lowther, whom Wilson knew, might have offered clues to their artistic relationship.'
'Let us observe in passing that Joseph Henry of Straffan [Henry]. a Vernet patron of 1752, also purchased a pair of interesting landscapes by Wilson, the one showing an artist at work before nature at Tivoli [P44], the other showing the artist and his assistant proceeding homewards with the easel and a very large canvas [P45].'
'But Vernet's real influence was perhaps less an immediately visual one and rather more oblique. Not only did he encourage a painter like Wilson, but his own success must have demonstrated the viabiity of the landscape profession in the middle years of the eighteenth century [ ...]'
'In 1765 a potential patron had demanded sketches (esquisses) for the approval of a friend. Vernet replied, "I am not used to making sketches for my pictures, and I have never done so. My practice is to compose on the canvas the picture I shall do, and to paint it right away, to profit from the warmth of my imagination. Moreover, the size helps me to see at a glance what I should put in, and I can compose accordingly"' (n. 45: L. Lagrange, Les Vernet, 1864, p. 179, letter to Girardot de Marigny, 6 May 1765).
