Born in Nancy to Breton parents, the French painter Jules Achille Noël spent his childhood in Brittany. After his apprenticeship with Cherioux, in Brest, Normandy, he opened a studio in Paris. However, the coasts of Normandy and Brittany remained his main source of inspiration. There he painted, in the footsteps of Eugène Isabey, romantic harbour views, beaches with ships, shipwrecks and fishing vessels on a stormy sea, which were very popular in his time. Between 1840 and 1879, Noël regularly exhibited his work at the Paris salons, where his powerful touch and lively palette were praised by the writer Charles Baudelaire, among others.