Lot 2146 D α

With the church of Santa Caterina a Formiello and the Porta Capuana, Oswald Achenbach places two important monuments of Naples at the centre of his impressive veduta. The Renaissance church, located in the eastern part of the city, was built in the early 16th century as a Dominican monastery church and took its name ‘a Formiello’ (by the pipes, by the canals) from a nearby aqueduct. The Porta Capuana, which was part of the new city wall with which King Ferdinand I of Aragon extended the city to the east, was built only shortly before, in 1484. Following the later demolition of the city wall, the gate designed by Giuliano da Maiano was preserved as a free-standing structure.

The actual main motif of this large-format veduta, however, is the lively market, which Achenbach depicts with an unusually large number of figures. From a lady dressed in blue in a carriage to people strolling with parasols, craftsmen and traders, farmers with their heavily laden packhorses and haggling customers, a diverse crowd has gathered on the piazza, providing a lively portrayal of bustling city life. Lastly, a soldier on guard stands like a manument at the foot of the towering wall on the right-hand edge of the picture, overlooking the scene.


With his views of Italian cities and landscapes, Oswald Achenbach became one of the leading German landscape painters in the second half of the 19th century and had a decisive influence on the image of Italy at the time.