Alessandro La Volpe (1820–1887) - Boats On The Shore, Naples 1868 - Oil

Alessandro LA VOLPE

(Lucera, 1820 – Rome, 1887)

Boats on the shore, Naples 1868

Oil on canvas

Signed, located and dated lower left

21 x 42 cm without frame

50 x 71 cm with frame

1868

Born in Lucera, Puglia on February 27, 1820, Alessandro La Volpe was the son of an employee of the Real Collegio. After completing his studies, he moved to Naples and entered the Accademia delle Belle Arti, where he studied with Gabriele Smargiassi (1798-1882) and Salvatore Fergola (1799-1874), the official painter of the ceremonies of the French monarchy in Naples.

La Volpe began exhibiting in Naples in 1848. In 1850 he was sent to Sicily and Egypt on an official mission with Prince Lichtenberg to catalogue important monuments. He returned from the expedition with studies made en plein air, in which he demonstrated his ability to capture the effects of light. The assignment of such a mission reveals an appreciation for La Volpe's meticulous attention to detail, as well as his skill as an accomplished painter.

Returning to Italy, he settled in Florence, where he helped found the Scuola di Staggia, a school of Romantic landscape painters. He drew en plein air in the 1850s and 1860s, and his work is characterized by a tendency to depict identifiable, usually picturesque, locations in the Tuscan countryside, while also focusing on specific features and everyday aspects. The Scuola di Staggia is important for being one of the first examples in Tuscany of a group of artists painting together from nature, a practice that greatly influenced the Macchiaioli circle and brought Tuscan artists into line with their mid-century contemporaries in Paris and America.

While continuing to exhibit regularly in Naples, he was awarded a gold medal in 1866. As a reward, the painting was sent to Paris to be presented to the public there in 1867. Elected honorary professor of the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples in 1870, La Volpe subsequently opened a studio in Rome, where he died on August 2, 1887.

La Volpe painted, with great attention to detail, large landscapes : the Gulf of Naples, the Pausilippe, views of the Amalfi Coast, Ischia, Capri, Nisida, Paestum and Pompeii, hilly landscapes and small ports with fishing boats. He was particularly influenced by the "pink manner" of Gabriele Smargiassi and Filippo Palizzi. All this makes him an eminent representative of the second generation of the Pausilippe school.

Museums : Rome (Gal. Nat. D’Art Mod.), Naples (Mus. Capodimonte, Pal. Royal, Gal. de l’Ac. des Beaux-Arts), Mulhouse, Guilianova, Pescara…