View of Naples from the Scudillo with the Palazzo di Capodimonte; View of the Gulf of Pozzuoli, oil on canvas, 49 x 127 cm and 50 x 128.3 cm, framed, (2)

Provenance:
Anonymous sale Christie’s, London, 13 December 1991 (lot 99);
European private collection

We are grateful to Dr. Ermanno Bellucci for confirming the attribution of the present paintings on the basis of digital photographs.
Ricciardelli treated the subject of the view of the Gulf of Pozzuoli on several occasions and the subject was also used by Paolo Antonio Paoli for the title page of his series of engravings, Avanzi delle antichità esistenti a Pozzuoli Cuma e Baia, which he published in 1768. However, its present pendant of Naples from Scdillio with Capodimonte is only known in the this version. In terms of both the complex structure and the rendering of the scene, this composition is unusual According to Bellucci, the paintings are datable to between 1740–45.

Gabriele Ricciardelli was a student of Nicola Bonito and Jan Frans van Bloemen and was active in Naples as a landscape and marine painter. He is documented as working in Naples in 1741. He was in Dublin between 1753 and 1759 and in 1777 visited London.