North Carolina Museum of Art

"...This amazing mountain continues to exhibit such various scenes of sublimity and beauty at exactly the distance one would choose to observe it from -- a distance which almost admits examination and certainly excludes immediate fear. When in the silent night, however, one listens to its groaning, while hollow sighs, as of gigantic sorrow, are often heard distinctly in my apartment, nothing can surpass one's sensation of amazement...."

So wrote Hester Thrale, one of many travelers who made Naples a destination on their Grand Tour of Europe. The Grand Tour, popular among wealthy Englishmen during the eighteenth century, was an extended sojourn to admire classical ruins and picturesque landscapes that completed a gentleman's education. Pompeo Batoni, Canaletto, and the French Chevalier Volaire made careers in Italy executing souvenir pictures for English travelers. Volaire painted more than 30 scenes of Mt. Vesuvius, among the principal natural attractions of the continent since it erupted periodically throughout the century.

Volaire contrasts the moods of nature with the cool, calm water reflecting moonlight and fire juxtaposed to the violent explosion and terror. Along the bridge he includes references to St. Januarius, protector of Naples from volcanic destruction: from left to right are a statue of the saint, a fleeing townsman holding up an image toward the mountain itself, and a drawing posted to a stone pier.