[ECOLE NAPOLITAINE] Vue de la baie de Messine

Original anonymous watercolor of the bay of Messina, inscribed in the bottom margin: Messina .
The coast of Messina in Sicily is depicted here as it was at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the lighthouse of the town standing out in the middle of the composition, the volcano of Etna in the distance, spitting ashes.
This type of watercolor of Italian and Sicilian port cities (Palermo, Naples ...) was very popular among wealthy European travelers who performed the traditional "Tour d'Italia", a pilgrimage through bucolic landscapes and large cities of Italy. This watercolor was part of an album amicorum gathering lacustrine and urban landscapes among engravings, lithographs, drawings, and washings realized in the first quarter of the XIXe century.