View Of The Gulf Of Naples With Night Eruption Of Vesuvius, Early 19th C., Circle Of Fidanza G

View of the Gulf of Naples with Night Eruption of Vesuvius, early 19th c., circle of Fidanza

Circle of Giuseppe Fidanza (Rome, circa 1750 – still active in 1811), early 19th century

Oil on relined canvas, 28 x 34 cm.

A small Vesuvian view connected with a late 18th-century pictorial model that enjoyed wide circulation among Grand Tour travellers. The Gulf of Naples appears here at night, with the cold light of the moon on one side and the red glow of the eruption on the other.

The composition is almost identical to that of a painting signed Giovanni Fidanza and dated 1794: tower and shipping on the left, central ridge, eruption on the right, and small figures on the rocks in the foreground. Such a close similarity suggests the reuse of that invention, or at least of a prototype developed in connection with the celebrated eruption of 1794.

This is not only a descending lava flow: incandescent material is also being expelled from the summit of the volcano. It is precisely this detail that links the painting to the memory of the great eruption of 1794, the most violent eruption of Vesuvius after that of 1631, when several settlements were destroyed, around 400 people died, and the height of the mountain was reduced by about 121 metres.

The compact format, clarity of design and immediately recognisable subject make the work especially appealing: a cabinet picture in which the taste for the Vesuvian landscape still preserves the memory of a real event that deeply struck contemporaries.

Good state of preservation.