Italian School, Late 18th Century
Four Works: Views of Mt. Vesuvius
circa 1794
gouache on paper
unsigned
title inscribed to lower edge of each: Espulsione di Cenere del Vesuvio, del 1794; Veduta di Napoli dalla Parte di Portici; Veduta di Napoli da Posilico; and Lava del Vesuvio de 1 Giugnio del 1794
14 1/4 x 21 inches.

The backboard of Veduta di Napoli dalla Parte di Portici inscribed This view of Naples and Vesuvius was painted for Captain Joseph Wright Alsop before his marriage to Lucy Whittlesey. / His ship is in the harbor. / He died 1844. / Daughter Clara Pemeroy Alsop / Granddaughter Lucy Chauncey Alsop, with backboard of Espulsione di Cenere del Seuvio, del 1794 bearing a similar inscription: Brought from Naples, Ital. / by / Captain Joseph Wright Alsop / 1794 / Daughter Clara Pemeroy Alsop / Granddaughter Lucy Chauncey Alsop 1875.

Joseph Wright Alsop (1722-1844) was born on March 2, 1772, to Richard and Mary Wright Alsop in Middleton, Connecticut. Richard was a merchant by trade, and he and his brother ran a successful cloth and dry goods house in New York before the family relocated to Connecticut in the wake of the American Revolution. On the East Coast, the Alsop family rose to political and social prominence, with Richard's brother, John, serving as a delegate for New York to the Continental Congress, and another descendant, John Alsop King, later serving as the first Republican governor of New York.

On November 5, 1797, Joseph Alsop married Lucy Whittelsey (1773-1856), the daughter of Chauncey Whittelsey (1746-1812) of New Haven, Connecticut, an alumnus of Yale University, who was elected church deacon in 1778 and was appointed Quartermaster-General of the militia in 1782. The couple had five children together, including the first of six storied generations of Joseph Wright Alsops, among whom were state representatives, state senators, Connecticut lieutenant governors, journalists, agricultural board members, and University of Connecticut trustees.

Family progenitor Joseph Alsop entered into the family business and continued his father's mercantile interests. The Yale University Library holds sixty-four boxes of Alsop family papers, spanning 1734-1986, including documentation of their business dealings in Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. Travels to Italy seemingly happened earlier, given the date of the painting offered here, prior to the Alsop-Whittlesey marriage in 1797.

According to the genealogical record, Clara Pemeroy Alsop, referenced in the inscriptions, died in infancy, but her younger brother, Charles Richard Alsop (1802-1865) survived through adulthood and had six children, among whom was Lucy Chauncey Alsop (1834-1922), who inherited the paintings in 1875. She remained in Middletown per United States census records but was granted a patent by the United Kingdom on November 5, 1894, for her "Improvements in Railway Signal Apparatus."

Provenance:
Captain Joseph Alsop (1722-1844), Middletown, Connecticut;
be descent within the Alsop family, to his granddaughter Lucy Chauncey Alsop (1802-1865), 1875.

Framed: 18 x 25 inches.
Each in overall good and stable condition. Most with light handling wear to edges and areas of scattered spotting. Acid burn present to verso edges. Colors are bold and bright. Espulsione painting with damp staining along lower edge.