A View of Naples through a Window (1824): Art, History and Details

A View of Naples through a Window (1824) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Franz Ludwig Catel (German, 1778–1856).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Franz Ludwig Catel worked in Rome and later traveled south to Naples. This painting presents that city’s most distinctive attraction: Mount Vesuvius, an active volcano that appears against an otherwise calm sky. Catel portrayed the scene from within a hotel room, contrasting the potentially overwhelming force of nature with the illusion of protection offered by distance and enclosed space.

Object facts

• Title: A View of Naples through a Window
• Date: 1824
• Creator attribution: Franz Ludwig Catel (German, 1778–1856)
• Culture: Germany, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on paper, mounted on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 59.5 x 46 x 5.5 cm (23 7/16 x 18 1/8 x 2 3/16 in.); Unframed: 46.8 x 33.5 cm (18 7/16 x 13 3/16 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1994.198

A detail from the museum

Mount Vesuvius was almost continuously active at the time that Franz Ludwig Catel visited Naples, and erupted just two years before this painting was completed.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Boetticher, Friedrich von. Malerwerke des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts: Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte. Hofheim am Taunus: H. Schmidt & C. Günther, Minden, Germany: 1974.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, “New Acquisitions Enter the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Permanent Collection,” February 14, 1995, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Di Maio, Elena. Franz Ludwig Catel e i suoi amici a Roma: un album di disegni dell'Ottocento : Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna, 25 ottobre 1996-26 gennaio 1997. Torino, Italy: Sacs, 1996.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.