The Ninth Wave

Ivan Aivazovsky

Painted

1850

Collection

State Russian Museum, St Petersburg

Survivors of a night-long storm cling to a piece of mast at dawn as the "ninth wave", which sailors believed to be the largest, bears down on them. Yet the rising sun turns sky and water gold and violet, and the picture speaks of hope rather than despair. It is the masterpiece of Aivazovsky, Russia's greatest painter of the sea.

Object record (Wikimedia Commons) · Public domain

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