Claude Louis Chatelet

The French artist Claude Louis Chatelet traveled to Italy from Paris while working on drawings for the publication Voyage pittoresque ou description des royaumes de Naples et de Sicilie (Picturesque Journey and Description of the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily), an illustrated topographical volume by the Abbé de Saint-Non made for the French audience (Paris, 1781-1786). This drawing is related to one of the final prints made for the volume. Chatelet’s grounding in topographical drawing-whose conventions were transferred to France from both Great Britain and the Netherlands-is evident in his careful pen work and monochromatic use of wash, as well as his treatment of the subject. He relegated the then-active Vesuvius to the background, almost obscuring it in the haze of a sunny summer day, and focused instead on the hilltop monastery and the peasants below.