This painting depicts La Cava de’ Tirreni, a town near Salerno in the Campania region of Italy, approximately forty miles south of Naples. It is probable that Bidauld was aware of La Cava before he traveled to Italy, where he sojourned from 1785 to 1790. A work painted by his friend Joseph Vernet in 1766 was likely inspired by the site (Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. 8321). Another possible point of reference for Bidauld was the etching of La Cava by Claude-Louis Châtelet that appeared in the successful five-volume
Voyage Pittoresque ou description des Royaumes de Naples et de Sicile written by Jean-Claude Richard de Saint-Non, known as Abbé de Saint-Non (Paris, 1781–86).[1] The widespread desire to reach southern Italy in the second half of the eighteenth-century was fueled by the rediscovery of the Roman towns Herculaneum (1738) and Pompeii (1748), as well as, farther south in Campania, the Doric temples of Paestum, the oldest remaining Greek temples on the Italian peninsula (with yet others in Sicily).[2] Although the antiquity of those sites endowed them with a pedigree that was not evident in La Cava, the cluster of buildings, campanile, and aqueduct-like bridge set in a stunning valley surrounded by mountains offered a sight no less satisfying to artists and other travelers, making it a worthy destination for its picturesque qualities.
Halfway up the hillside on the left of The Met’s painting is the town’s sixteenth-century hospital, Santa Maria dell’Olmo. Behind and above the hospital is the convent of Santa Maria del Rifugio. At the top of the skyline is the bell tower of the church of San Francesco. To the right of the town is the sixteenth-century bridge, also named for San Francesco. Beyond the town, low hills set off the considerably taller Monte San Liberatore. Not seen in this view of La Cava is an even more impressive nearby peak, Monte Finestra, from whose summit one can see the Gulf of Naples.
Bidauld may have visited La Cava as early as 1788, the date inscribed on a view of Salerno (whereabouts unknown), five miles away.[3] Bidauld’s passport to the Kingdom of Naples allowed him to remain there one year. The artist made several other views in the kingdom in 1789, for example, one of Isola del Liri in the Duchy of Sora (whereabouts unknown) and another at Avezzano in the Abruzzi region (Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. LP 6919).[4] A further study,
Lake Fucino and the Abruzzi Mountains (The Met,
2003.42.4), was also painted at Avezzano.
In the catalogue of Bidauld’s posthumous atelier sale (held at the Hôtel des ventes mobilières in Paris on March 25 and 26, 1847), La Cava is mentioned as the subject of two paintings by the artist, which are listed under the heading
Études peintes (painted studies). The picture sold as no. 20 was entitled
Vue du pont et de l’hôpital de la Cava (royaume de Naples), and the next lot, no. 21, was entitled
Vue du pont et d’une partie de la ville de la Cava.[5] The title of lot no. 20 specifies the presence of a hospital and bridge, suggesting a link between The Met’s picture and the one sold as part of Bidauld’s estate. In fact, a cognate of The Met picture that recently surfaced on the Paris art market bears the number 20 inscribed on the back of its secondary support, suggesting that it was the one listed in the sale catalogue.[6] There are notable differences of detail between The Met and Paris versions. In the latter, there are more clouds; the artist also included, among the trees at the top of the hill at the far left the peaked façade of a building with a window through which skylight can be seen.
Two other paintings are competitors for the work sold as number 21. These are the paintings today at the Getty Museum, Los Angeles (inv. 2001.55), inscribed
Vue du pont et d’une pa[r]tie de la Ville de la Cava R[oyau]me de Naples on its reverse,[7] and the nearly identical version at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge (inv. PD. 32-2006). The Getty and Fitzwilliam paintings depict an alternative view of La Cava from The Met and Paris art market pictures. Here, the bridge is on the left and the town is on the right. In this view, we see the tallest mountain in the vicinity of La Cava, the aforementioned Monte Finestra. Thus, the link between the views depicted in the paintings sold as numbers 20 and 21 (and their respective cognates) can now be established: they form a pair, with each representing the same town seen from the opposite side.
The questions raised by The Met’s painting and its cognate, as well as the related composition seen in the paintings at the Getty and Fitzwilliam, are complex. The works have not been studied side-by-side, and it is not possible to determine with certainty the sequence of their execution solely on the basis of photographs. The problem is compounded by Bidauld’s highly deliberate brushwork, which is challenging to differentiate from one version to another. Moreover, there are innumerable examples of painted studies by the artist in which as many as three examples are known to exist.[8] These are compelling questions because they relate to the practice of an artist who belonged to a seminal generation of plein-air painters, also including Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes and Simon Denis. Yet, while the designation "
études peintes" in the catalogue of Bidauld’s estate sale has tempted some art historians to assume that all these works were painted out of doors, wholly or in part, the matter is not settled. Indeed, there are other closely related works by Bidauld that further complicate the question. First, there is a painting catalogued as
Roman Landscape with Acqueduct in the Kunstmuseum, Basel (inv. 1395), which is signed and dated
Roma 1788, and whose viewpoint is comparable to that of The Met and Paris art market pictures.[9] There are also, in the Musée Calvet, Avignon, a drawing depicting the same view as the Getty and Fitzwilliam paintings, as well as a painting showing a similar view from a different perspective, which is inscribed on the reverse "
Rm [for Royaume]
de Naples 1811," suggesting that Bidauld returned to La Cava more than two decades after his first visit.[10] The Met’s study, which is undated, is difficult to situate within the artist’s biography based on currently available information about the work and those to which it relates. Additional research is required to arrive at a definitive understanding of how these works relate to one another.
Throughout his time in Italy, Bidauld chose to focus his artistic energies on bucolic small towns, places where nature reigned alongside or even dominated architecture, rather than on the best-known monuments of antiquity. In several instances, as in the case of La Cava, he depicted the same place multiple times, from multiple angles.
Bidauld obtained considerable success after returning to Paris in 1790, regularly exhibiting historical landscapes in the picturesque tradition at the state-sponsored annual exhibition known as the Salon. His reputation would eventually become that of an arch-conservative, one frequently cited for his rejection of young innovators of the Romantic generation, such as Théodore Rousseau and Paul Huet. The appearance of his oil studies at his estate sale caused a sensation, briefly, but Bidauld was then forgotten almost entirely, only to be rediscovered in the 1970s.[11] Yet his reverence for nature, including the beauty of Italy’s lesser-known landscapes—which he depicted with an unfailing eye, did not go entirely unappreciated. The landscape painter Camille Corot later reflected: "Bidauld! Ah! But gently, now, he wasn't just anybody, he was at times truly a master, and one of the finest. Certain of his small canvases are masterpieces, and full of fine example and sound counsel for all of us, young and old alike. I admire him and I respect him, since, you see, I owe him a great deal, if not my very best."[12]
Orfeo Cellura 2024
[1] The etching with the view of La Cava is in the third volume, published in 1783, two years before Bidauld’s Italian journey started.
[2] See Joselita Raspi Serra, ed.
Paestum and the Doric revival 1750–1830: Essential Outlines of an Approach, Florence, 1986.
[3]
Landscape with a View of Salerno, inscribed on the reverse
Bidauld ville de Salerne 1788 and
Vue de la Ville de Salerne dans le/ Royaume de Naples — 1788; see Patrick Matthiesen and Guy Stair Sainty, eds.,
An Eye on Nature II: The Gallic Prospect. French Landscape Painting 1785–1900, exh. cat., Stair Sainty Matthiesen Gallery, New York 1999, no. 3.
[4] The first, sold at Sotheby’s, New York, January 29, 2020, no. 67. Another view of Isola del Liri is inscribed
1790 on the reverse (sale, Christie’s, New York, April 17, 2024, no. 152).
[5]
Catalogue d’une belle collection d’études peintes et de dessins, Faits d’après nature par feu M. Bidauld, Peintre Paysagiste, [. . .], Hôtel des ventes mobilières, Paris, March 24–26, 1847, nos. 20 (View of the bridge and the hospital of La Cava, Kingdom of Naples) and 21 (View of the bridge and a part of the town of La Cava).
[6] See
Peintures et sculptures du XIXe siècle, exh. cat., Galerie La Nouvelle Athènes, Paris, fall 2023, no. 3.
[7] View of the bridge and a part of the town of La Cava, Kingdom of Naples.
[8] All are views of Monte Cavo, south of Rome: Sotheby’s, New York, January 27, 2006, no. 337; Sotheby’s, London, July 8, 2021, no. 214; Christie’s, New York, January 31, 2024, no. 74. (Only the most recent sale dates are given for paintings that appeared at auction more than once.)
[9] The painting’s early history remains obscure, but it may be identical with the
Vue de la ville et du route de la Cava au royaume de Naples, which Bidauld sold together with
Vue de Tivoli et de la plaine de Rome (whereabouts unknown) to the Parisian collector Gabriel Auguste Godefroy (1728–1813). They are said to have been exhibited at the Salon of 1791, but are not described in the
livret; see Julien De Gaulle,
Notes sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. Bidauld, paysagiste, membre de l’Institut, [Paris] 1847, p. 5, and, for a more comprehensive account, [Désiré] Raoul-Rouchette, "Notice historique sue la vie et les ouvrages de M. Bidauld," in
Institut National de France, Académie des Beaux-Arts: Séance publique annuelle, Paris, 1849, pp. 36–41. See also Suzanne Gutwirth,
Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld (1758-1846), peintures et dessins, exh. cat., Carpentras, Angers, and Cherbourg 1978, unpaginated, no. 9.
[10] See Gutwirth 1978, nos. 50 (the painting, inv. 22.592) and 51 (the drawing, without inventory number).
[11] More recently, the emergence of digital research has made it possible to begin to reconstruct his output, and to frame essential questions about his artistic process.
[12] Jules Laurens,
La légende des ateliers. Fragments et notes d'un artiste peintre (de 1842 à 1900), Carpentras 1901, p. 288, cited in Philip Conisbee, Sarah Faunce, Jeremy Strick, eds.,
In the Light of Italy: Corot and Early Open-air Painting, exh. cat., Washington, Brooklyn, and St. Louis 1996, p. 140.
