The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's:
Gaspar Butler. Naples. A view of the Bay towards Castel Sant'Elmo.
This painting is finely preserved overall, having apparently remained largely undisturbed. Both views have been relined, and are secure and stable. This painting has been slightly more recently restored than the pendant, and this painting also unlike the pendant had at an early date been rolled, to judge from the frequent verticals in the craquelure.
The magnificent detail within the city of Naples and in the port itself has remained perfectly intact. The ships in the water have been more fragile, with the light brown tone of their hull and particularly of their delicate rigging often thin or scarcely visible.
There is quite a wide band of older retouching along the top edge (about 6 cms). A few small scattered retouchings in the sky and the water are visible under ultra violet light, with other minor retouching along the other outer edges, however the great sweep of the sky and the water remains finely intact as does the city itself.
This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
Gaspar Butler. View of Naples with Vesuvius.
This painting has remained remarkably intact and quite largely undisturbed. It was never rolled unlike its pendant, and has little trace of recent restoration. The faint trace of an old central vertical stretcher bar can just be seen.
The minute detail throughout the city and the waterfront are perfectly crisp including the finest minutiae of the rigging in the ships across the wide expanse of deeply coloured sea itself. Above, the hillside is also richly detailed and glazed.
Ultra violet does show an occasional old isolated retouching on the hill, with some old retouching at the centre of the base edge. Older retouching can also be seen along the top edge similar to that on the pendant, with one or two other retouchings in the sky near the summit of Vesuvius.
The beautiful overall condition of these two paintings is exceptional.
This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."
These splendid views of the Neapolitan Bay were painted by Gaspar Butler, an artist whose nationality has not yet been discovered. He may have been Dutch or Flemish, but the fact he was repeatedly patronised by English Grand Tourists does suggest possible British origins.
The date of Butler's earliest known picture, 1723, is the first notice we have of his time in Naples and by the 1730s he was working for the family of Admiral George Byng, 1st Viscount Torrington, and Graf Aloys Thomas von Harrach, the viceroy of Naples and Sicily from 1728 until 1733. In the six canvases in the Harrach collection, Vienna, four of which are dated 1730, while the others are of 1731 and 1733, Butler produced expansive panoramic views of Naples and her bay of similar dimensions and very much in the same spirit as the present works.1 Two of the views are taken from the same vantage points as the present pair, and differ only in the staffage. In the present View of the Bay towards Castel Sant'Elmo it is once more the British flag that flies from the ships, indicating that this pair was surely commissioned by British patrons.
Two very similar views by the artist, on copper and taken from the same vantage points, were sold London, Christie's, 5 July 2011, lots 50 and 51, for £190,000 and £180,000 respectively. Two further views on copper of the Bay of Naples with the English Fleet are in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.2 Charles Beddington suggests that the Greenwich picture depicts the arrival of Admiral George Byng on 1 August 1718.
1. N. Spinosa, Pittura napoletana del Settecento, Naples 1987, vol. II, p. 155, cat. no. 267, reproduced figs 358–63.
2. C. Beddington, in Capolavori in Festa, Effimero barocco a Largo di Palazzo (1683–1759), exhibition catalogue, Naples 1997, p. 147, cat. no. 1.5(a), reproduced p. 145.
