Lot 53: A view of Naples from the sea with a British Man-o'-War firng a salute

Charles-Léopold Grevenbroeck active Paris 1730-active Naples from c.1758/59
A view of Naples from the sea with a British Man-o'-War firng a salute
oil on copper
12¼ x 21 in. 31 x 53.5 cm.

Charles-Léopold Grevenbroeck was a member of a Dutch family of painters active in Italy as early as the mid-seventeenth century. Orazio Grevenbroeck, the father, worked in Naples alongside Gaspar Butler, Juan and Tommaso Ruiz and Giovanni Garro, producing capriccio views and naval battle scenes. Charles-Léopold, while born in Milan, was mostly active in Paris in the 1730s and 40s. His most celebrated paintings from that period are a suite of views of Paris, dated 1741 (Musée Carnavalet, Paris).

Around 1758 Charles-Léopold moved to Naples, where he produced view paintings such as this one. Working in the tradition of his father, the younger Grevenbroeck's paintings are characterized by an attention to minute detail, a bright palette and the luminosity most typical of northern paintings, the effects of which are enhanced by the use of a copper ground. This View of Naples bears a striking resemblance to Antonio Joli's Departure of Charles de Bourbon for Spain, view from the sea (Prefettura, Naples) of 1761, and may indeed have been painted around the same time (see S. Cassani, All'ombra del Vesuvio: Napoli nella veduta europea dal Quattrocento all'Ottocento , Naples, 1990, p. 127, for comparable works by the artist).