Pietro Fabris

Originally, this painting most probably formed part of a view over the city and gulf of Naples. The fragment depicts figures surveying part of 'Il Miglio d'oro' ('The Golden Mile') – the coastal road connecting the city to the Royal Palace of Portici, created for Charles of Bourbon (1716–1788) between 1738 and 1742, along which the Neapolitan nobility constructed a number of magnificent villas and palaces surrounded by gardens.

Fabris was familiar with these environs, particularly through his patron Sir William Hamilton (1730–1803), British Ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples, who owned Villa Angelica, in Portici. Fabris painted the Villa Angelica in a pair of views sold at Sotheby's, New York, 30 January 2014, lot 127.¹ It is not impossible that the present work may once have formed a section of a view taken from the south-facing terrace of the villa.

We are grateful to Ermanno Bellucci for endorsing the attribution to Pietro Fabris on the basis of a digital image, and for his help in the cataloguing of this lot.

¹ https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.127.html/2014/the-courts-of-europe-n09107