Frans Vervloet

Private collection, Basel;

From whom acquired by the present owner.

Though Belgian-born, Frans Vervloet traveled extensively throughout Italy, spending prolonged periods in Naples and later in Venice. The present work depicts a Neapolitan landscape featuring two figures, one mounted on a donkey, advancing along a path toward the Real Bosco di Capodimonte. Vervloet’s understated treatment captures the Capodimonte not as a formal emblem of the state, but as a living landscape. Conceived in 1738 by King Charles VII of Naples as a royal hunting lodge and summer residence, the Capodimonte was later expanded into a palace that also served as a repository for the Farnese art collection.