Antique Landscape Painting of Naples by George Fischhof (Austrian, 1849-1914)

An extraordinary landscape view of Naples, identified as such on the stretchers with a title of “No. 829 Der Neaple”, this intricate scene is executed in the most bright and vibrant of palettes. Brilliant blues and luscious greens dance across this quaint Italianate landscape, the wild arid landscape domesticated by a worn path flanked with walls of stone gathered from the nearby fields before a small cafe. Stone Pines and three Italian Cypress trees tower over the few locals wandering the road; a couple chats at a table in the “Osteria”, hidden from the heat of the sun with a slight canopy. The atmosphere over the Mediterranean waters obscures the mountains and cities in the distance, blurring the sky, water and landscape together at the horizon.

The work is signed in George Fischoff’s pseudonym, A.L. Terni, a tidy script in red ink lower right. The painting remains hung in what is almost certainly the first frame, the frame itself inscribed in graphite “No. 829” in the same scrawling script that notates the location of the painting on the stretchers. The frame itself is a wonderful and valuable work of art, a brilliantly gilded structure crafted predominantly out of European pine with fluted columns on either side raising bold acanthus capitals. It is such a rich and wonderful “escapism” piece, a window across the ocean to a moment in the distant past.

Measurements: 15 1/8″ H x 30 1/8″ W [canvas]; 26″ H x 41″ W x 2 3/4″ D [frame]

Condition Report:
Professionally cleaned, conserved and re-varnished; stable all-over craquelure, particularly to the blues of the sky; not relined; under UV examination: small spot of inpainting above beige house with red tile roof; trio of inpainted spots upper right corner and another spot of inpainting in extreme upper right corner; spot of inpaint to rightmost cypress tree; some overpaint to extreme upper left corner.