Albert Marquet

Marcelle Marquet, Paris
Private Collection, Europe

Naples, Pallazzo Reale, Il paesaggio Napolitano nella pittura straniera, 1962

The canvas is unlined and the edges are reinforced with tape. Under UV a dozen pindots and hairline strokes of inpainting fluoresce throughout, primarily in the mountains and sky. In addition there are numerous pindots and thin lines of inpainting near extreme left edge and upper left corner. Aside from these retouches, several of the lighter original pigments fluoresce but no other inpainting is apparent. Overall this work is in good condition.
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Painted circa 1908, La Baie de Naples au soleil couchant is an exquisite example of Marquet’s remarkable ability to distill the particular qualities of marine light and atmosphere on canvas. Depicting the distinctive outline of Vesuvius above the Bay of Naples—a landscape which in previous centuries had acted as a source of inspiration to artists such as J.M.W. Turner and Thomas Jones—the present work features boats bobbing gently at anchor within the dusk, whilst the rays of the setting sun gild the summit of the volcano with a delicate roseate glow. Although Marquet had begun to establish himself as a masterful painter of Northern French landscapes, in particular Parisian scenes, in an article written in 1913 Marcel Sembat noted that, “a crucial moment for his oeuvre came when he travelled to Naples… The waters of the Bay of Naples do not tell the same stories as the Seine, flowing between its banks… The waters of the Mediterranean estuaries have more glittering reflections, and the boats there are surrounded by more delicate shadows than those painted by Paris bridges” (quoted in Wildenstein & Co., Ltd., ed., Albert Marquet: 1875-1947, London, 1985, p. 6).

Marquet had been closely involved with the Fauve group during the early years of the twentieth century, showing his work at exhibitions alongside Henri Matisse and André Derain. However, by the time La Baie de Naples au soleil couchant was painted, the artist had distanced himself somewhat from the bold colors employed by Matisse and Derain in favor of a more muted, yet gloriously luminescent, palette. Sembat further declared: “No artist has the same relationship with light as Marquet. It is as if he owned it. He possesses the secret of a pure and intense light with fills all the sky with its uniform and colorless glow… A painting by Marquet gives the impression of a large window being opened onto the outside” (quoted in ibid., p. 6). With its striking viewpoint and distinctive use of soft color tones, the present work may be seen as being highly significant within Marquet’s early corpus.