Vue de Bastia, Isle de Corse

The son of an artist (Gaspard Doumet), Zacharie was originally a marine painter attached to the Toulon Arsenal. After the Royalist revolt that occurred there in 1793, supported by the British fleet but eventually suppressed, he followed the British to Corsica. Three years later, after Corsica fell back into French Republican hands in 1796, he moved on to Lisbon where he was employed as a draughtsman. He returned to his home town in 1806.

This slightly primitive gouache depicting English ships off Bastia has a painted frame and provincial decorative Louis XVI style border. It might have served as a high-class 'souvenir' commissioned by a visiting ship's master or a naval officer in the 1794-96 period. The view shows the harbour and old Bastia, with the British flag flying from the Governor's Palace, much as it remains today. The more modern town and harbour area lie further the right (north).