View over the Bay of Naples
  • Victor-Jean Nicolle
  • Paris 1754 - 1826
  • View over the Bay of Naples
  • Watercolour over pen and brown ink,
  • signed with pen on the lower right: V. J. Nicolle,
    old inscription on the mount
  • 153 × 232 mm

During his life, Nicolle was famous for the mostly small-format watercolours with views of Rome and Naples he made during his lengthy stays in Italy betweeen 1779 and 1810. Northern European travellers on the Grand Tour especially treasured these works as souvenirs.

On the lefthand side of this view, the hexagonal Castel Sant’ Elmo from the fourteenth century, once an important element of Naples’ fortifications and later a notorious prison, looms on the not yet built-up hill of Vomero.