Seen across the Bay of Naples, Vesuvius emerges from mist at twilight. Ships dot the bay as a single figure, accompanied by a white cat, stands by the golden walls in the left foreground to gaze over the city. In 1871, the Athenaeum, a weekly journal, praised Hunt’s exhibition piece, noting the "thunderous-looking twilight, with reflected gleams like flashes from steel on the sea, and in the sky a look which suggests breathless waiting for a tumult . . . rendering the subject . . . with . . . grandeur and sentiment, this work is, technically speaking, a masterpiece of chiaroscuro." The artist was inspired by atmospheric effects he found in precedents by J. M. W. Turner and J. M. Whistler, the naturalistic agenda of John Ruskin, and the meticulous handling of the Pre-Raphaelites.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Bay of Naples–A Land of Smouldering Fire
Artist:Alfred William Hunt (British, Liverpool 1830–1896 London)
Date:1871
Medium:Watercolor with touches of gouache (bodycolor) over graphite
Dimensions:19-1/2 x 29 5/8 in. (49.5 x 75.3 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Purchase, Florence B. Selden Bequest, 2000
Object Number:2000.318
View of the Bay of Naples with Vesuvius, Smoking, in the Distance (Evening)
Signature: Lower left: "AW Hunt 1871"
Humphrey Roberts (British), (by 1884); his sale Christie's, London, May 23, 1908, lot 254 (£58.16s.); bought by Dunthorne (British), possibly the fine art dealer Robert Dunthorne; Christie's, London, March 1, 1920, lot 28; bought by Johnson (British); Christie's, London, May 23, 1981, lot 4; bought by David Fuller; his sale Christie's, London, April 7, 2000, lot 46; Vendor: Katrin Bellinger Kunsthandel , Munich
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," August 13–November 4, 2001.
Yale Center for British Art, Yale University. "Alfred William Hunt," September 15, 2004–December 5, 2004.
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford University. "Alfred William Hunt," January 26, 2005–April 3, 2005.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "British Vision, 1700–1900: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints," December 7, 2023–March 5, 2024.
"The Society of Painters in Water Colours (Second Notice)." Athenaeum. May 6, 1871, pp. 565–66.
"The Watercolour Exhibitions." The Daily Telegraph. May 4, 1871, p. 7, "(70) 'A Land of Smouldering Fire', is a curiously effective view of the Bay of Naples by night, by Mr. Alfred W. Hunt.".
"The Watercolour Exhibitions." Pall Mall Gazette. May 10, 1871, pp. 11-12, "In landscape, Mr. Hunt...carries off the honours with his very poetical and intense picture from the Bay of Naples (70). This scheme of unmitigated atmospheric purples, with a few crimson touched clouds in the upper sky, was a difficult one; but Mr. Hunt has carried it successfully through, and his picture is full not only of sentiment but of insight, and the grandeur that comes of unclinching thoroughness and, above all, of drawing.".
Edmund Gosse Notes by Mr. Edmund Gosse on the Pictures and Drawings of Mr. Alfred W. Hunt, exhibited at The Fine Art Society's. London, 1884, no. 30, p. 16.
Royal Jubilee Exhibition. Exh. cat. Manchester, 1887, no. 1268, p. 95, as "Bay of Naples", exhibited in Gallery No. 12.
Frederic George Stephens "A Modern Private Collection [Humphrey Roberts]." The Art Journal. November 1888, pp. 323-24, "...a twilight scene of the darkest, instinct with mysteries of light, tone, and colour, beyond the art of my pen to describe [...this work] gives us the Bay of Naples during evening twilight. Upon the calm steely and enamel-like water, a lovely sky is reflected, and some of its spaces are flushed with sullen red, others are white as with the pallors of death, some are pregnant with lightning...".
Frederick Wedmore "Alfred Hunt." Magazine of Art. January 1891, p. 107.
Exhibition of Drawings in Water Colour by Alfred William Hunt. With an introduction by William Cosmo Monkhouse, exh. cat. London: Burlington Fine Arts Club. London, 1897, no. 76, p. 8.
Cosmo Monkhouse Memorial Exhibition of Pictures by Alfred W. Hunt. Exh. cat. Liverpool: Walker Art Gallery. 1897, no. 150.
International Exhibition Glasgow 1901: Official Catalogue of the Fine Art Section. Glasgow: Charles P. Watson, 1901, no. 987, p. 70, "A. W. Hunt, 'Naples–A Land of Smouldering Fire.' Lent by Humphrey Roberts, Esq.".
Exhibition of Works by British Artists deceased since 1850. Exh. cat. London: Royal Academy of Arts. Winter 1901, no. 139.
Catalogue of the Important Collection of Modern Pictures and Water Colour Drawings of the English and Continental Schools and Works by Early English Masters of Humphrey Roberts, Esq. Sale cat. Christie's, London. May 21-23, 1908, lot 254, p. 58, as "Naples: A Land of Smouldering Fire", bought for £58.16s. [56 guineas] by "Dunthorne" [possibly the fine art dealer Robert Dunthorne].
Catalogue of Modern Pictures and Water Colour Drawings [...] Sale cat. Christie's, London. March 1, 1920, lot 28, p. 2, as "Naples: A land of smouldering fire", purchased by "Johnson" for £52.10s [50 guineas], with exhibition history.
The Old Water-Colour Society's Club, 1924-1925. 2, edited by Randall Davies, F.S.A., 1925, p. 42, no. 70 as " A Land of Smouldering Fire".
Andrew Wilton, Anne Lyles The Great Age of British Watercolours. Exh. cat. London: Royal Academy of Arts; Washington: National Gallery of Art. London and Munich: Prestel, 1993, no. 176, pl. 326, p. 297.
The Fuller Collection of Victorian Landscape Watercolours. Sale cat. Christie's, London. April 7, 2000, lot 46, p. 16, 68-69, as "Naples: 'A Land of Smouldering Fire,' view looking from Naples across the bay to Vesuvius in eruption, evening sky", ill.
Andrew Wilton "The Legacy of Turner's Watercolours." Turner: The Great Watercolours. Edited by Eric Shanes, exh. cat. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2000, fig. 30, p. 51, ill.
Christopher Newall , with contributions by Scott Wilcox and Colin Harrison The Poetry of Truth: Alfred William Hunt and the Art of Landscape. Exh. cat. New Haven: Yale Center for British Art; Oxford: Ashmolean Museum. Oxford: University of Oxford, 2004, no. 41, pp. 132-33, ill.
Andrew Wilton, Anne Lyles British Watercolours, 1750–1880 (first published as The Great Age of British Watercolours, 1750-1880). Prestel: London and Munich, 2011, no. 176, pl. 326.
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