Footnotes

• PROVENANCE:
  The Matarazzo Collection, Brazil
  In the present owner's collection for approximately 70 years
  
  No oil paintings of Dutch views and only three such drawings by Vanvitelli are known to exist: one in the Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe, Rome, and two in the Certosa di San Martino, Naples (figs. 1 and 2). The present work and the following lot clearly relate to the latter two drawings. On the same scale and, in both cases, from the same viewpoint, the Naples drawings may well have served as initial sketches for the finished gouaches.
  
  Vanvitelli left his native Netherlands, having completed his training with Mathias Withoos (Amersfoort 1627-1703 Hoorn), and is first recorded in Rome in January 1675. Both of the Naples drawings are on the reverse of sketches of Southern landscapes, which suggests that they were executed after his arrival in Italy. The same can also be said of the present gouaches, given the date of 1712 on the reverse of the view of Hoorn together with the fact that both views are clearly the work of an accomplished and confident hand. The Naples drawings have long been considered idealised views of Hoorn and Amersfoort as they are obviously from his Italian period but the degree of detail in these gouaches suggests that they were in fact based on much more careful observation, quite possibly in situ. Vanvitelli would have known both cities very well as he began his training with Withoos in his native Amersfoort and then in 1672, when the French occupied the city, he left with his master for Hoorn.