During the second half of the eighteenth-century, a journey to Italy was considered an essential component in the education of young artists and noblemen from Northern Europe. Although Venice and Florence were requisite stops on the journey, artists tended to make their longest stay in Rome, and they generally also spent time in Naples.
Both cities offered celebrated archeological sites and a taste of the unspoiled rural life of the campagna. Working outdoors, artists recorded their observations of these natural and man-made wonders in small-scale studies, mostly executed with oil paint on paper. In these oils, painters captured the grandiosity of Rome’s classical ruins and the sublime natural beauty of Naples, with its famous view of Mount Vesuvius. Artists from France, Belgium, Germany, Norway, and Sweden are featured in this selection.
Views of Rome and Naples is the fifth exhibition in a series drawn from the collection of oil sketches assembled by Eugene V. Thaw and his wife, Clare. Mr. Thaw was also an honorary trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This installation is a program of the Drawing Institute at the Morgan Library & Museum.
Franz Ludwig Catel (German, 1778–1856), The Bay of Naples with Vesuvius and Castel dell’Ovo, ca. 1818–20, oil on paper, mounted on cardboard. Thaw Collection, Jointly Owned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Eugene V. Thaw, 2009; 2009.400.18.