Born in the Belgian town of Mechelen, Frans Vervloet moved to Brussels in 1821 following initial instruction with his brother and at the local academy. A year later, the Maatschappij ter Bevordering van de Schone Kunsten awarded him a scholarship to study in Rome for two years. Vervloet excelled early on in the genre of architectural painting, executing fine church interiors, and thus the churches and ruins of Rome became his primary subject matter. His views of Rome and the campagna were coveted by discerning connoisseurs, one notable example being the Interior View of Saint Peter‘s (now Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) purchased in 1824 by William I, King of the Netherlands.
Vervloet settled in Naples in 1824, where he would remain for three decades. There he befriended Anton Sminck Pitloo, a founder of the so-called Scuola di Posillipo, of which Vervloet soon became a principal protagonist. Characterised by their clear palette, sketchy brushwork and lucid organisation, his views of Naples and the surrounding countryside were, like those of Rome before them, sought after by rulers and elite collectors across Europe. In 1854 Vervloet moved to Venice, where he resided until his death. An avid traveler, he had visited the lagoon city already in 1834–35, while other journeys in search of new scenery took him as far as Istanbul in 1844.
The present view, dated 1830, is exemplary of Vervloet’s Neapolitan period, during which the artist was profoundly influenced by Pitloo and when his paintings, like the present one, are distinguished by their beautifully smooth rendering of light and shadow. Its soft shades of lilac and pink evoke the glow of evening light, the gentle waves in the bay catching the setting sun. The view is taken from the shore of Posillipo with part of the façade of the Palazzo Donn’Anna partially visible on the right. On the left the view opens up towards the Riviera di Chiaia and the Gulf of Naples, with the lighthouse that marks the separation between Chiaia and Posillipo—which in the nineteenth century were still rural and idyllic boroughs—and the port and the old part of the city, while Vesuvius closes the view on the far right.
