The Bay of Naples with Capri (1891) (or The Gulf of Naples with Capri (1891))
Ivan Aivazovsky
29 Lip 1817 – 2 Maj 1900
Aivazovsky painted the Bay of Naples many times throughout his life, yet this 1891 canvas — created when he was already 74 — carries the mature lightness of a master. The calm, expansive waters of the bay stretch across the foreground in the artist’s characteristic palette of transparent blues and golden reflections, while the silhouette of Capri appears on the horizon with the particular softness of a distant island seen from the water. Light — always a leading presence in Aivazovsky’s work — seems to illuminate the sea from within, giving it the effect of glowing glass.
The painting is small in format, yet immense in its sense of space — one of the qualities that distinguishes the greatest marine painters. The composition opens horizontally onto the Tyrrhenian Sea, and Capri, suspended between water and sky, becomes not merely a geographical feature but the emotional centre of the entire work. Aivazovsky — although he worked solely from memory and imagination, never painting en plein air — was able to convey Italy with greater intensity than many artists working on the spot. In this painting one can feel the Mediterranean air, the stillness of the South, and that particular luminescence that makes Aivazovsky’s Italy feel almost mythical.
The year 1891, when this work was created, was a time when Aivazovsky was already a living legend: an academician, an honorary member of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts, and an artist compared by critics to Turner. Yet he continued to return to his favourite waters — the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the Bay of Naples — as if each new canvas were another attempt to capture something that still eluded him. That search can be felt in this painting, and it is precisely what holds the viewer’s gaze. In Aivazovsky’s vast body of work — numbering more than six thousand canvases — the Bay of Naples appears again and again, like a recurring motif in a symphony. Yet the artist’s late Italian works are not repetitions of earlier triumphs; they carry a new, calmer energy. He loved this place, and the affection was mutual: he knew it, understood its changing moods, and knew how the light fell there at different times of year. The 1891 version bears the marks of maturity without losing its lightness. There is nothing forced here, nothing theatrical for effect — only precise, serene vision, with the awareness that beauty needs no commentary.
Although Ivan Aivazovsky is associated above all with dramatic visions of foaming waves and maritime disasters, the motif of the Bay of Naples returned throughout his life as a symbol of artistic renewal. It was his journey to Italy in the early 1840s that shaped his unique style and brought him international fame, impressing even J.M.W. Turner himself. The present 1891 painting proves that, even half a century after his first Italian journey and towards the end of a long life, the artist was still painting Naples from memory and personal notes in his studio in Feodosia, demonstrating the extraordinary visual memory for which he was renowned. The exceptional value of this particular canvas is confirmed by its inclusion in the official scholarly archive of the artist’s works compiled by the distinguished experts Gianni Caffiero and Ivan Samarine. In June 2021, at an auction at the prestigious Sotheby’s in London, the painting stirred great excitement among collectors, achieving a price of more than £200,000 — several times above its original estimates. It is also worth remembering that J.M.W. Turner, on seeing Aivazovsky’s Neapolitan nocturnal compositions in the 1840s, was so moved that he dedicated to him a poem written in Italian. The same bay, the same light, the same fascination with water and horizon were carried by the painter onto canvas for half a century.
DETAILS
Title: The Bay of Naples with Capri (1891) (or The Gulf of Naples with Capri (1891)) Original title: The Bay of Naples with Capri Artist: Ivan Aivazovsky Date: 1892 Place of origin: Italy / Rosja Type : Painting Technique: Oil on canvas Genre: Marine art Style: Romanticism / Realism Form: Painting
Wysokorozdzielczy skan dzieła w jakości muzealnej — 300 DPI, wysoka rozdzielczość.
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Korekta kolorystyczna
Autorska korekta kolorystyczna na podstawie analizy zależności tonalnych, tak by wydruk wiernie oddawał charakter dzieła.
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Pigmentowy druk Epson
Druk na papierze artystycznym — Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308 oraz Epson Velvet Fine Art Paper przy użyciu tuszy pigmentowych Epson UltraChrome Pro 12 — trwałość ponad 100 lat.
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Rama z litego drewna
Ramę wykonujemy ręcznie z litego dębu lub sosny, wykańczamy olejem Rubio Monocoat. Oprawiamy w muzealne, bezkwasowe Passepartout.
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Kontrola + certyfikat
Każdy wydruk przechodzi kontrolę kolorystyczną i jakości ramy. Dołączamy certyfikat autentyczności z numerem edycji.
Na czym budujemy Twoje zaufanie
Epson — papier Velvet Fine Art + tusze UltraChrome Pro 12
Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308 — papier muzealny, certyfikat 100+ lat
Rubio Monocoat — olej do drewna, naturalne wykończenie
