Henri-joseph Harpignies - View Of The Bay Of Naples With Mount Vesuvius

HENRI-JOSEPH HARPIGNIES (1819-1916)

A VIEW ACROSS THE BAY OF NAPLES FROM MARGELLINA WITH THE CASTEL DELL'OVO AND VESUVIUS BEYOND
Signed & dated l.l. h. harpignies naples 1864
Watercolour
22 x 32 cm




The present work is a rare example of Harpignies' Neapolitan subjects, with only a handful or so further watercolours of the city presently known to us, all of which are closely comparable to ours in their handling. Representative examples from among these include that sold at Rouillac, Cheverny, 05.06.2005, lot 36 (sold for €19,000) where it was acquired by Didier Aaron, Paris; another sold at Aguttes, Lyon, 31.03.2016, lot 29 (sold for €16,575); and the third, and closest in execution and composition to ours, is in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (acc. no. D.344-1908). Harpignies also painted a small number of views in oils of Naples and its environs, with a view of Massalubiansa now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeux (inv. no. FH 866-163) and a similar large-scale work in the Princeton University Art Museum (acc. no. 1979-53).


Harpignies was a pupil of the landscape painter Jean Achard, with whom he travelled throughout France. Between the years 1849-52 and 1863-5, Harpignies spent time in Italy. In a lineage of artists influenced by Jean-Baptiste Corot and the early artists of the Barbizon School, Harpignies was among the most significant: despite practising a generation after the 1830 School, Harpignies nevertheless concentrated primarily on landscape painting in a Barbizon manner, even working in the Forest of Fontainbleu as these artistic antecedents had done, from 1854 onwards. He worked in both oils and watercolour, developing a distinctive hand in his use of the latter medium: they are characterised by brisk brushstrokes, often with pale, watery pigments, wherein much of the paper is left uncoloured or only thinly-painted to create atmospheric effects.