The Bay of Naples

In April 1883 the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel gave Renoir a one-man show in Paris, and this view of Naples hung in it. Durand-Ruel had bought it from the painter the year before, in May 1882, for 700 francs. Within a week of the show closing he sold it for 3,000 francs to James Duncan, a sugar refiner with an estate in Argyll, which made it the first Impressionist picture bought by a Scottish collector. Renoir had painted it in the autumn of 1881 from an upper window near the Piazza Municipio, and the corner of that balcony still sits at the lower left. It is the morning view. Vesuvius smokes behind the anchored fishing boats, their sails not yet raised, while a donkey loaded with produce and a cart pulled by two bullocks move along the quay. He signed it at the lower right, “Renoir. 81”.