Antoine Claude Ponthus-cinier - View Of The Port Of Naples - Oil On Canvas - Monogrammed - 19th C.

Antoine Claude PONTHUS-CINIER (1812 - 1885)
Vue du port de Naples avec le Castel dell'Ovo
Huile sur toile
Monogrammed P-C on the bow of a boat, foreground
100.5 × 65 cm - Avec cadre: 116 × 80 cm
Très bon état

In the foreground, the lively Borgo Marinari shore stretches between heavy beached hulls: on the left, a large Latin-sailed tartane and several flat-bottomed skiffs; on the right, the dark carcass of a disarmed vessel whose bare masts cut through the sky; in the center, a green boat bearing the artist's monogram, around which a standing sailor and a young boy sitting at the net are bustling. A black dog roams the wet sand.

Two tall masts rise above the pier, one flying an Italian tricolor flag, the other the French flag - a double presence that attests to the Neapolitan port's consular and commercial activity in the mid-19th century. To the left, the white rendered facades and tiled roofs of a riverside neighborhood frame the scene; in the center of the background, on its islet of Megaride, the squat, square mass of Castel dell'Ovo stands out against the deep blue sea, recognizable by its medieval walls and advanced position in the bay.

The sky occupies the upper two-thirds of the composition: a large white cumulus cloud bursts out in the center, surrounded by gray clouds whose drama contrasts with the warm, low-angled light of the foreground.

This view of Naples is the result of Antoine Ponthus-Cinier's transalpine sojourn from 1842 to 1844, during which he traveled the peninsula as far as Campania and collected the sketches that would fuel his landscape work for several decades. A student of Fleury Richard and Pierre Révoil at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, then of Paul Delaroche in Paris before his departure for Italy, Ponthus-Cinier is one of the most accomplished representatives of Italianate landscape painting in the 19th-century Lyon school.

The present panel belongs to a series of eight canvases commissioned for the salon of M. Villard's home in Saint-Germain-au-Mont-d'Or. Ponthus-Cinier himself reproduced all these compositions in his Librum Veritatis - a personal register authenticating his works, bequeathed to the Beaux-Arts library in Lyon and now kept at the city's Bibliothèque municipale - where the present scene is clearly identifiable.

The canvas retains slight undulations due to contact with the plaster of the wall on which it was formerly stretched; three small holes in the lower part were filled during restoration. Overall satisfactory condition, compatible with presentation as is.

Frame: large, modern, quality baguette, with gilded matte effects.

Provenance: M. Villard, Saint-Germain-au-Mont-d'Or (commissioned directly from the artist); auction, Maison Conan-Belleville, Lyon, 2025; private collection.

Bibliography/archives:
- Librum Veritatis by Antoine Claude Ponthus-Cinier, Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon (autograph reproduction of the work).

Work on view at the gallery (07240).
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