Attributed to Salvatore Fergola

Attributed to SALVATORE FERGOLA (Naples, 1799-1874).
"View of Barcelona".
Oil on canvas.
Located in the stretcher frame, with title in Italian.
Measurements: 46 x 67 cm.

Salvatore Fergola was a Neapolitan vedutista. Although his views often reproduce Neapolitan landscapes, he also traveled to other countries. In 1832, he traveled in Spain and France, from where he returned with numerous drawings. He made five views of Barcelona. An engraving of the one shown here is preserved in Ramon Soley's Atlas de Barcelona (engraving 412). It is probable that the oil painting is by him, a transfer of the sketch to the canvas. It certainly corresponds to his style, atmospheric and luminous as well as detailed. As was usual at the time, it is a view that aims to capture in detail the topography of the place, but at the same time he grants himself poetic licenses to achieve a more picturesque result. It is one of the roads that gave access to Barcelona: the Portal Nou, located in the eastern bastion of the medieval wall. The image shows the roadway animated by pedestrians and wheeled vehicles leaving the city. In the left part of the composition there is a public wash house and, in the center of the image, a hill that must coincide with the place that occupied the Fort Pienc and that was built as a military control next to the main road. In the background, the military Ciutadella can be seen and, closing the image, the mountain and the castle of Montjuïc.

Salvatore Fergola was an Italian painter, mainly of landscapes or vedute in Naples and its surroundings. He is considered a member of the Posillipo School. Luigi Fergola, his father, was a landscape engraver. Salvatore was trained in literature and architecture. He became a follower of Jakob Philipp Hackert, who had also been his father's mentor. Like his father and other painters, such as Giacinto Gigante, he worked for some time in the Royal Topographical Office. In 1819, the future Francis I of the Two Sicilies commissioned him to paint views of Naples: Naples from Capodimonte, Naples from Marinella, Naples from the Magdalene Bridge and a Veduta of the Botanical Garden. In 1827 he was appointed honorary professor at the Royal Institute of Fine Arts (now the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli). Among his students were Achille Vertunni, Ignazio Lavagna and Giuseppe Benassai. He was often commissioned to commemorate governmental works and events.