Ivan Aivazovsky's 'The Ninth Wave' (1850) visualises the folk belief that the ninth and largest wave of a tempest is the deadliest. A cluster of shipwrecked sailors clings to a piece of broken mast against the rising dawn as the enormous crest of the ninth wave gathers before them. Spreading golden sunlight and emerald sea-green mark the summit of Russian Romantic seascape; it has hung at the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg for over 150 years as one of the great icons of 19th-century Russian painting.

Exhibition Venue

Russian Museum

Saint Petersburg, Russia