The Italian coast near Naples

John Glover is now remembered primarily as one of Australia’s most celebrated painters. But before he immigrated to Tasmania he had behind him a long career as a landscape painter in England. Glover made the customary journey to Italy in 1818, visiting Rome then travelling south to the Gulf of Naples. The view in this painting is from Cape Posillipo (the site of the Roman poet Virgil’s villa) to Cape Miseno, with the islands of Procida and Ischia in the distance. It was painted in 1828, exactly a decade after the artist’s trip to Italy, probably worked up from earlier studies, although none such are known today. The watercolour is Glover’s only known Neapolitan landscape.