Carlo Bonavia

Parmar, Paris;
His sale, Paris, 9-12 April 1883, lot 84 (as Claude-Joseph Vernet);
Anonymous sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 30 April 1903, lot 29 (for FF 3,900, as Vernet);
Ogden Mills (1856 - 1929), New York;
By whom bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 1929 (as Vernet, inv. no. 37.160.16);
By whom deaccessioned, New York, Sotheby's, 14 January 1994, lot 72;
There acquired by the present collector. 

Honolulu Academy of Arts, and Art Gallery of Toronto, Four Centuries of European Painting, 1949-50, no. 16 (as Vernet);
Little Rock, Arkansas Art Center, Five Centuries of European Painting, 1963, p. 35 (as Vernet).

F. Ingersoll-Smouse, Joseph Vernet, Peintre de Marine, 1926, vol. I, p. 82, cat. no. 605 (as Vernet);
J. L. Allen, "The Paintings in the Ogden Mills Bequest," The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. XXXIII, 1938, p. 36 (as Vernet);
C. Sterling, Metropolitan Museum of Art Catalogue of French Paintings, XV-XVIII centuries, New York 1955, p. 144-45 (as Vernet);
B. B. Fredericksen and F. Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, 1972, pp. 30, 498, 607 (as Bonavia);
K. Baetjer, European Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, A Summary Catalogue, 1980, vol. I, p 13, vol. II, reproduced p. 105 (as Bonavia). 

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work has been restored and should be hung in its current condition. The canvas has an old glue lining. The darker colors seem to be very fresh in particular, and the detail is well preserved. Throughout the lighter colors, there are numerous but mostly well applied retouches. The retouches are only discolored in the pink clouds in the lower sky, particularly on the right side. The retouches address some abrasion as well as some acidification of the original canvas.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

While Bonavia appears to have been trained in the Neapolitan landscape tradition of Salvator Rosa and Leonardo Coccorante, it was the French painter, Claude-Joseph Vernet who most influenced his style. Bonavia shares Vernet's predilection for the delicate Rococo palette and, like the French painter, had an atmospheric, rather than analytical, approach to landscape. Bonavia was celebrated during his own lifetime, but later fell into obscurity and until the 20^th century, his works were often mistaken for those of Vernet.  

Indeed, this elegant view of a harbor at dawn was previously attributed to Claude-Joseph Vernet.  While it was still called Vernet when Ogden Mills donated it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (see Provenance), scholarship shifted in the 1960's and by 1979, the museum had officially changed the attribution to Bonavia. The Museum deaccessioned the picture at Sotheby's in 1994, when it was purchased by the current owner.