The Bay of Naples from the Strada di Posillipo looking east, with fishermen selling their catch in the foreground

PROVENANCE:
Either Sir Gerard Vanneck, 2nd Bt. (d.1791), Heveningham Hall, Yoxford, Suffolk, or acquired in Italy in 1768 by Chaloner Ardececkne (1743 - 1809), Glevering Park, Suffolk, and by descent to Joshua Charles Vanneck, 4th Baron Huntingford (1842 - 1915), Hevening Hall, Yoxford, Surry, and by descent.

NOTE:
Dated 1756, this picture is among the very earliest recorded works by Fabris. Two scenes of popular life, formerly with Trafalger Gardens, London, are also of the same date (N. Spinosa and L. di Mauro, Vedute napoletane del Settecento, Naples, 1993, p.200, no. 152, pls. 84 and 85).

Although he worked in Naples for most of his life, Fabris would frequently add the phrase 'English Painter' to his signature, testimony to the importance to him of his English patrons. In 1768, Fabris exhibited in London at the Free Society and accompanied the British Envoy, Sir William Hamilton, to Sicliy, later including a portrait of his enthusiastic patron in one of two genre scenes showing the Drawing-room in Lord Fortrose's Appartment in Naples (1770; National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh).

Heveningham in Suffolk, built in the early 1780s for Sir Gerard Vanneck, 2nd Bt. (d. 1791), to the design of Sir Robert Taylor who was superseeded by James Wyatt, was one of the most ambitious neo-Classical houses of its time. Vanneck's grandfather, Cornelius, had been paymaster of the land forces of the United Provinces, but his father, Joshua (d. 1777), created a baronet in 1751 had a successful career as a London Merchant. In view of the family's strong Dutch links it is not surprising that the collection inherited through Sir Gerard's brother and heir, Joshua, 3rd Bt. and 1st Barin Huntingfield (1745 - 1816), was rich in pictures by Dutch seventeenth centure artists. There is no specific evidence as to who acquired this picture by Fabris. As his parents were married in 1731 - 2, Sir Gerard would have been more or less the right age to make the Gand Tour in, or soon after 1756, but there is no record of this.

An alternative provenance is perhaps suggested by that of the two outstanding vedute from Heveningham, the pair of Guardis sold privately through Christie's and Agnes to Ernest Guinness, 1st Bt. and subsequently 1st Earl of Iveagh (1847 - 1927), in 1895 (A. Morassi, Guardi, i Dipinti, 1, Venice, 1973, pp. 407 and 413, nos. 524 and 555). These are known to have been acquired by Chaloner Arcedeckne (c.1743 - 1809) of Glevering Park, Suffolk, who was in Italy in 1768 (J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701- 1800, compiled from the Brinsley ford Archive, New Haven and London, 1997,p.23). The Guardis are almost certainly identifiable with a pair exhibited in Venice in 1764, and so it seems that Arcedeckne was prepared to buy certainly sutible pictures that, for whatever reson, were available. Pictures from his collection could have passed by two routes to the Vanneck family: his daughter Catherine (d.1813) was the first wife of Joshua, 2nd Lord Huntingfield (1778 - 1844), whose heir (by his second wife), Charles, 3rd Lord Huntingfield (1818 - 1897), married Louisa (d. 1898), only daughter of Andrew Arcedeckne.