Naples, at Gallerie d'Italia exhibition on the city at the time of Napoleon in Rebell's paintings

Intesa Sanpaolo opens to the public from Nov. 23, 2023 to April 7, 2024 at the Gallerie d’Italia in Naples the exhibition Naples in the Time of Napoleon. Rebell and the Light of the Gulf, dedicated to the Viennese painter Joseph Rebell (Vienna, 1787 - Dresden, 1828) and the lively and vibrant cultural atmosphere of the city of Naples in the years 1808 to 1815, the period of the reign of Joachim Murat and Caroline Bonaparte, who saw the arts as an effective means of promoting the civic growth of Neapolitan society. The exhibition, curated by Sabine Grabner, Luisa Martorelli, Fernando Mazzocca and Gennaro Toscano, is produced in partnership with the Belvedere Museum in Vienna and with the collaboration of the Institut Français in Naples and is sponsored by the City of Naples.

On display are 73 works from important national and international cultural institutions, such as the Belvedere in Vienna, the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, the Austrian National Library, the Castle of Fontainebleau and Versailles. as well as from the Intesa Sanpaolo collection. The French Decade was a very flourishing period for landscape painting, particularly during the reign of Joachim Murat and Caroline Bonaparte, who called French masters of the genre to their court, such as Simon Denis, Alexadre Dunouy, and Auguste de Forbin, and reserved special protection for the Viennese Joseph Rebell, who, alongside other innovators of vedutism in those years, is the great protagonist of the exhibition.

This is the first exhibition dedicated to Joseph Rebell, whose painting is characterized by a new way of representing landscape, experimenting with it on the real and rendering it with dramatic force, marking a turning point in artistic production between Neoclassicism and Romanticism and anticipating the Romantic conception of landscape painting, based on the exaltation of atmospheric and sentimental values. His example was fundamental for the Dutch Antoon Sminck Pitloo and for the generation of artists of the Posillipo School. Rebell’s works are compared for the first time with the landscape artists of his time-Michael Wutky, who was his master, Pierre-Jacques Volaire, Simon Denis, Alexander Dunouy, Louis de Forbin, and Johan Christian Dahl.

On display are the splendid youthful portraits of Joachim and Caroline Murat, a portrait of Napoleon in imperial coronation dress, numerous views of the Gulf of Naples and its magnificent surroundings, Vesuvius, depictions of the Amalfi Coast and the Islands, as well as drawings and preparatory studies. Many loans came from Austrian and French museums, with some major works never or rarely seen in Italy.

The exhibition catalog is produced by Edizioni Gallerie d’Italia | Skira.

The Naples museum, along with those in Milan, Turin and Vicenza, is part of Intesa Sanpaolo’s Gallerie d’Italia museum project, led by Michele Coppola, the bank’s Executive Director of Art, Culture and Historical Assets. “The Gallerie d’Italia exhibitions, together with the proprietary collections housed here,” says Michele Coppola, Executive Director Art, Culture and Historical Assets of Intesa Sanpaolo, “are a tribute to the great art and history of Naples, rich in seasons and protagonists to be rediscovered. Rebell’s magnificent landscapes tell the story of a significant historical moment for the city, in an exhibition project that we have created together with the Belvedere in Vienna and thanks to loans from important Italian and European museums. I believe that this initiative is also concrete proof of the Bank’s strong bond with Naples and the vitality of a museum that works to contribute to the artistic beauty, cultural prestige and social growth of this extraordinary city.”

Naples, at Gallerie d'Italia exhibition on the city at the time of Napoleon in Rebell's paintings

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