Lot 220: GIOVANNI BATTISTA LUSIERI

VIEW OF LAKE AVERNO
signed and dated in brown ink G. B. Lusier f. 1786. lower edge center; and inscribed on the reverse in an old hand Vedute di Laco d'Averno

25 by 32 in.; 63.5 by 81.2 cm.

pen and black ink and watercolor over pencil on paper

We know very little about Lusieri's early life, but he was born in Rome around 1755 and moved to Naples in the early 1780s. He was quickly recognized as an extremely talented vedutist and his studio became a destination for English aristocrats on the Grand Tour, whom he supplied with large and detailed views of Naples and Sicily. In 1799, at the recommendation of Sir William Hamilton, Lusieri joined the Earl of Elgin on his Embassy to Constantinople. He subsequently moved to Athens, where he remained as the Earl's agent until his death in 1821. During those 22 years he completed only one watercolor.

This View of Lake Averno dates from Lusieri's early years in Naples. Lake Averno (or Lago d'Averno) was an extremely famous and important site to the east of Naples. It was formed in a volcanic crater and is roughly one mile (2 km) in circumference. In Roman times it was thought to be the entrance to Hades and in the Aeneid Virgil describes Aneaas descending into the Underworld through a nearby cave.

The View of Lake Averno is unusual because there are two other versions of the subject. ( )One, from the collection of the Earl of Elgin, Broomhall, was sold at Sotheby's London, June 30, 1986, lot 108 and the other, from the Estate of Pauline Harrison, was sold at Doyle's, New York, October 22, 2008, lot 2029. The major elements of the composition, including the foreground figures, are the same in all three, but the former Broomhall watercolor is somewhat wider and has only two figures in the right middleground rather than three. It is probable that the present version is the first and the prototype for the others given its date of 1786 and the fact that it is the only one that is signed.

During his own lifetime Lusieri was famous, not simply for the beauty of his views, but also for the painstaking way in which he created them. He began by drawing the outlines for the entire composition in a hard pencil, sent specially to him from London. He then began adding the watercolor, by his own account directly from nature, building it up in layers to achieve the richness and density that distinguishes his works. He apparently worked out the figures separately and then incorporated them into the composition, for there are watercolors for the standing man with the hoe, his dog and the gesturing woman at the far right at Broomhall. (1)

1. See F. Spirito, Lusieri, Naples 2003, pp. 139,144 and 146, figs. 54a, 62 and 66.