Paintings of the Bay of Naples: 1860 to 1927

In the first of these two articles tracing the history of paintings of the Bay (or Gulf) of Naples, I reached the late work of Clarkson Frederick Stanfield in the 1850s. Just to recap and save you from having to look back, the Bay sweeps anti-clockwise through three-quarters of circle, from the island of Ischia in the north-west, through the great city of Naples in the north, past the slopes of Mount Vesuvius with the remains of Pompeii, to Sorrento in the south-east, and ends with the island of Capri in the south.

Edgar Degas (1834–1917), View of Naples (1860), watercolour, dimensions not known, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. The Athenaeum.

When Edgar Degas was in Italy between 1856-59, he made a number of landscape sketches, some in oil on paper, others like this View of Naples (1860) in watercolour. None seems to have been developed into anything more substantial, though, and he then switched to history painting and portraiture for the next decade or so.

After the rejection of his masterwork Florence from Bellosguardo, the Pre-Raphaelite landscape painter John Brett didn’t hang around in England, but went out to Italy again for the summer of 1863.

John Brett (1831–1902), Massa, Bay of Naples (1863-64), oil on canvas, 63.8 x 102 cm, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN. Wikimedia Commons.

Massa, Bay of Naples (1863-64) is perhaps the most spectacular of the oil paintings that Brett completed during this Mediterranean campaign, and appears to have been painted from a vessel on the water.

John Brett (1831–1902), Massa, Bay of Naples (detail) (1863-64), oil on canvas, 63.8 x 102 cm, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN. Wikimedia Commons.

He had travelled there on board the SS Scotia, although it’s unclear whether that ship served as his floating studio, or he may have transferred to another. The Scotia arrived in the Bay of Naples by 9 September, following which he went to stay in Sorrento, then Capri by November. It’s therefore likely that he continued to work on this finely detailed painting during the winter of 1863-64.

His work wasn’t in vain, as this transformed his career. Alfred Morrison bought this painting for the substantial sum of £250, and Brett was to benefit further from his generous patronage. By August the following year Brett could afford to buy his own yacht, and tried a change of tack: painting the British coast using studies made in front of the motif, and working on his finished paintings in his studio.

Alfred William Hunt (1830–1896), Bay of Naples – A Land of Smouldering Fire (1871), watercolor with touches of gouache over graphite on paper, 49.5 x 75.3 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Purchase, Florence B. Selden Bequest, 2000), New York, NY. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum.

Alfred William Hunt’s Bay of Naples – A Land of Smouldering Fire (1871) was probably based on sketches and studies made during his tour of the Mediterranean during the winter of 1869-70. This view is taken from the top of the Vómero, a hill to the west of Naples. In the left foreground is a wall from the fortifications. In the far distance, across the bay, is Vesuvius, still partially lit by the rays of the setting sun.

Giuseppe De Nittis (1846–1884), Seascape near Naples (1873), oil on wood, 24.5 x 61 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

The Italian Impressionist Giuseppe De Nittis painted this Seascape near Naples in 1873, early in his career.

Marià Fortuny (1838–1874), Portici Beach (1874), oil, dimensions not known, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

The following year the Catalan artist Marià Fortuny painted Portici Beach on the waterfront of Naples. Tragically, he contracted malaria while painting there en plein air, and died from that when he was in Rome just a few months later.

Alessandro la Volpe (1820–1887), View of Capri (1875), oil on canvas, 52.5 x 106.5 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Alessandro la Volpe was a local landscape painter, whose View of Capri from 1875 shows the island in a heat haze, from the hills above Sorrento.

Oswald Achenbach (1827–1905), View of Capri (1884), oil on canvas, 44 × 60.5 cm, Von-der-Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.

Oswald Achenbach’s View of Capri (1884) shows the island from a similar vantage point in the hills above Sorrento. Achenbach was one of several members of the Düsseldorf School who visited Italy on multiple occasions during his career, ending with this extended visit that started in 1882.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919), Bay of Naples, Evening (1881), media and dimensions not known, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA. Wikimedia Commons.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted Bay of Naples, Evening during his stay of several weeks in Naples in 1881. He had been unable to paint when in Rome earlier, but once he arrived in this city was able to complete figurative works and two matching landscapes of the bay. Although it was recognised that these two views represent morning and evening, for some years they were confused, and this painting was thought incorrectly to show the bay in the morning.

Mykhaylo Berkos (1861–1919), Sorrento (1899), oil on canvas on cardboard, 39.5 x 48.3 cm, location not known. Image by Leonid Kulikov or Mykhailo Kvitka, via Wikimedia Commons.

In this painting of Sorrento from 1899, Ukrainian artist Mykhaylo Berkos shows trees growing in an old ruined building facing the Bay of Naples, on the Sorrentine Peninsula closest to Capri.

Charles Caryl Coleman (1840–1928), A Shower of Ashes Upon Ottaviano (1906), pastel on gray-blue laid paper mounted on board, 26.8 × 21.4 cm, Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY. Wikimedia Commons.

In his later years, the American landscape artist Charles Caryl Coleman lived on the nearby island of Capri. In 1906, at the start of Vesuvius’ eruption in April, he travelled to the mainland to paint A Shower of Ashes Upon Ottaviano in pastels. This shows the dust- and smoke-laden air of the Naples suburb Ottaviano at ten o’clock in the morning. Although Ottaviano was spared anything worse than dust and smoke in 1906, it was badly damaged during the volcano’s last substantial eruption in 1944.

My last two paintings are both by the Italian-American artist Joseph Stella, who came from the city of Muro Lucano, inland and to the east of Naples.

Joseph Stella (1877–1946), Purissima (1927), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA. Wikimedia Commons.

Stella’s Purissima from 1927 places a mystical woman between the two sacred Ibis birds. In the background is the Bay of Naples, with Mount Vesuvius at the right.

Joseph Stella (1877–1946), Vesuvius III (date not known), oil on canvas, 25.4 x 30.5 cm, oil on canvas, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

This undated landscape sketch of Vesuvius III probably dates from the same period, and looks south-east across the Bay of Naples, with Castel dell’Ovo nearest.