Originally in the collects ion of renowned Swedish industrialist and merchant James Fredrik Dickson, the present lot once decorated the interiors of Tjolöholm Castle – a lavish Tudor-style manor house (fig.1).

Fig.1 Tjolöholm Castle, Halland, Sweden

Shipwreck off the Black Sea Coast was a gift from James Dickson to his only daughter Blanche and her husband, Count Carl Bonde (fig.2) who inherited the Tjolöholm estate in 1906. The couple lived there together until their divorce in 1920, and Blanche continued to spend her summers at the estate until 1951. After her death, the painting was inherited by the couple’s youngest child, Count Thure Bonde, and was sold in 1976.

Fig.2 Blanche Dickson and Carl Bonde, 1896

The present composition was painted in 1887, only two years before Aivazovsky executed his 3 by 5 metre masterpiece The Wave, now at the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg. The brilliant translucency of the waves, the greenish tint to the water and the heavier, almost sculptural brushstrokes that build up the rocks and the sky are typical of these large-scale works.

The present work is included in the numbered archive of the artist’s work compiled by Gianni Caffiero and Ivan Samarine.