The French eighteenth-century painter Claude-Joseph Vernet developed his skills helping his dad make decorative panels for sedan chairs. But when he spotted whales off the coast of Marseille, he decided he wanted to become a marine painter. Vernet would eventually establish himself as a master of dramatic seascapes under skies so well observed that, were he around today, he’d surely have been a keen member of the Cloud Appreciation Society.

In this painting, A Storm on a Mediterranean Coast, a bunch of bedraggled shipwreck survivors clamber up a rocky coast as ships heave in the furious waves. The appearance of the sky is, of course, the last thing on the minds of the desperate survivors – except, perhaps, for the woman sitting on the rocks looking pensive. Has she suddenly noticed the dramatic clouds? Might she, in fact, be admiring the sight of the windswept rain falling from the dark, menacing storm cloud that we call a Cumulonimbus? Has she spotted those bright cauliflower mounds in the distance, known as Cumulus congestus clouds, which look to be developing into another storm cell? It must be said, cloudspotters can get distracted even in the most perilous of situations.