The Roux family of Mediterranean port painters was made up of no less than six important marine artists who were all born in the French seaport of Marseille. The second son of Antoine Roux (1765-1835), Francois Joseph Frederic Roux, known as Frederic, was the third generation of this important dynasty of sea painters.

By 1822, at the age of seventeen, Frederic was already a successful painter of ship portraits having developed a style that was already the envy of many older practitioners. In 1827 he moved to Paris to study further with Joseph Vernet and in 1835 set up his own studio in Le Havre where in a very short time he became the most popular painter of visiting American ship captains.

Frederic's style underwent many chan...