Pietro Antoniani

Anonymous sale, London, Bonham's, 20 March 1986, lot 104 (as Attributed to Pietro Antoniani);

With Partridge, London;

From whom acquired by the present collector.

F. Fraser, Beloved Emma: The Life of Emma Lady Hamilton, London 1986, reproduced fig. 25.

The eighteenth-century painter Pietro Antoniani specialized in impressive vista paintings that, like the present work, combined landscapes, urbanscapes, mountainscapes, and seascapes in order to create panoramic views that rivalled history paintings in their grandeur. This painting is one of the largest Antoniani ever produced, suggesting that it was a special commission.

Though born in Milan, Antoniani built his career in Naples, where his paintings proved especially popular with British visitors undertaking the Grand Tour. This view depicts the Bay of Naples from a southwestern vantage: Mount Vesuvius smokes at right, the Castel Sant'Elmo crowns the hill at center, and the Posillipo shore is visible at left. 

The vessels that populate the foreground are a mixture of commercial and pleasure boats; indeed, the row boat at center is filled with a well-dressed party, one of whom (perhaps a doppelgänger for Antoniani himself) appears to be sketching the very vista that fills the sweeping composition.

We are grateful to Dario Succi and Ralph Toledano for endorsing the attribution to Antoniani on the basis of digital photographs.