Bay of Naples–A Land of Smouldering Fire

Bay of Naples–A Land of Smouldering Fire

Alfred William Hunt

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Seen across the Bay of Naples, Vesuvius emerges from mist at twilight. Ships dot the bay as a single figure, accompanied by a white cat, stands by the golden walls in the left foreground to gaze over the city. In 1871, the Athenaeum, a weekly journal, praised Hunt’s exhibition piece, noting the "thunderous-looking twilight, with reflected gleams like flashes from steel on the sea, and in the sky a look which suggests breathless waiting for a tumult . . . rendering the subject . . . with . . . grandeur and sentiment, this work is, technically speaking, a masterpiece of chiaroscuro." The artist was inspired by atmospheric effects he found in precedents by J. M. W. Turner and J. M. Whistler, the naturalistic agenda of John Ruskin, and the meticulous handling of the Pre-Raphaelites.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bay of Naples–A Land of Smouldering FireBay of Naples–A Land of Smouldering FireBay of Naples–A Land of Smouldering FireBay of Naples–A Land of Smouldering FireBay of Naples–A Land of Smouldering Fire

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.