Cleveland Museum of Art

Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples from a Cave

Adolf von Heydeck

Date

1820

Medium

watercolor with graphite; framing lines in pen and black ink

Culture

Germany, 19th century

Department

Drawings

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Adolf von Heydeck worked in Rome and later traveled south to Naples. This drawing presents that city’s most distinctive attraction: Mount Vesuvius, an active volcano that appears against an otherwise calm sky. Von Heydeck portrayed the scene from within a cave interior, contrasting the potentially overwhelming force of nature with the illusion of protection offered by distance and enclosed space. Mount Vesuvius was almost continuously active at the time that Adolf von Heydeck visited Naples, and erupted just two years after this drawing was completed.

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