Johan Christian Clausen Dahl
VIEW OVER THE BAY OF NAPLES WITH VESUVIUS
Oil on canvas. 20.5 x 30.2 cm.
Lower right dated: d. 16 August 1820.
The stretcher to the reverse of the painting is inscribed "Dahl f. 1820" and could possibly be interpreted as a signature. The nighttime view depicts a terrace which when compared to his painting "Two men on a terrace near the Bay of Naples", painted only two days earlier on 14th August 1820 in Quisisana (Bang, op.cit., No. 217), enables the location of the scene to be determined.
When his catalogue raisonné was published in 1987, the location of the composition was unknown. Marie Lodrup Bang, on seeing a photograph of the work, confirms that it can be identified with the work numbered 218 in her catalogue (letter dated 04.03.2013). In addition, Ernst Haverkamp, Oslo, knowing the original, also recognised the painting as being by Dahl.
Provenance
General A. Bull. - Oswald Berentzen, Kristiania, 1920. - Harald Aars, Oslo 1937. - Private possession since 1979, Norway.
Literature
Marie Lodrup Bang: Johan Christian Dahl 1788-1857. Life and Works, Vol. 2, Oslo 1987, p. 102, no. 218.
Exhibitions
1907 Kristiania. - 1926 Oslo. - 1937 Oslo. - 1938 Bergen.