The painting was painted ten years after Landscape with Animals, a much larger canvas that Loutherbourg exhibited to great acclaim in Paris, and six years after the painter's moving to London. Moonlight was shown in the Royal Academy of Arts in 1778, equally to great acclaim. Loutherbourg does not depict a real scenery but two sources of light and shadows (moonlight and fire), as well as two types of reflective surface (animal skin and water). The result is a highly artificial virtuoso piece, in which (as he often did) Loutherbourg attempts to surpass his elder rival Claude Joseph Vernet.[2][1]
References
^ abcJacquot, Dominique (2006). Le musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg. Cinq siècles de peinture. Strasbourg: Musées de Strasbourg. pp. 166–167. ISBN2-901833-78-0.
