The extremely extensive collections left by Count Guglielmo Coronini Cronberg include a number of true masterpieces: paintings, sculptures, furniture, jewellery and other precious decorative art objects that testify to the evolution of taste over the past centuries and the refined collecting activities of the Coronini family.
Discover the unique masterpieces that are the pride of our museum!
The two paintings, conceived to be shown together to offer an entire view of the Gulf of Naples, present in the foreground the parade of the royal procession held on 8 September each year along the Riviera di Chiaia towards the church of Santa Maria di Piedigrotta.
The event was a grandiose military parade, in which, amidst crowds of jubilant spectators, the royal carriages and the entire court paraded against the evocative backdrop of the Bay of Naples, creating a spectacle of incomparable beauty, of which numerous pictorial accounts remain.
Heir to Gaspar van Wittel's lucid, Enlightenment-style vedutism, the Modena-born Antonio Joli (1700 circa 1777) expanded and personalised his language through long stays in the main European capitals, where he became appreciated as a landscape artist and vedutista, finally reaching the apex of a long and successful career in Naples.
All’interno della carrozza reale, rappresentata nel primo dei due dipinti, è ben riconoscibile la figura del re bambino Ferdinando IV, salito al trono 1759, all’età di otto anni, in seguito all’abdicazione del padre, Carlo di Borbone, che aveva ereditato la corona di Spagna. Poiché, tuttavia, quest’ultimo è ancora rappresentato accanto al figlio, la sfilata, a cui parteciparono eccezionalmente entrambi i sovrani, deve essere quella dell’8 settembre 1759, che si tenne subito l’incoronazione di Ferdinando e poco prima della partenza di Carlo per la Spagna.
