The Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius

Artist Pierre-Jacques Volaire French, 1729–before 1802

Date1777

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensionsoverall: 53 1/8 x 89 in. (134.9 x 226.1 cm)
frame: 60 1/4 x 96 5/8 x 4 in. (153 x 245.4 x 10.2 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Alcy C. Kendrick Bequest and the State of North Carolina, by exchange

Object number82.1

On View

On view

ProvenanceCommissioned in 1777 by Henry Blundell, for Ince Blundell Hall, Lancashire; thence by descent to Col. Sir joseph Weld, who sold Ince in 1960, but kept the art collections (transferred paintings to Lulworth Castle, Dorset in 1961); his sale, Christie's, London, 12 December 1980, lot 104, bought by Agnew's); with Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London; sold to NCMA, 1982.

Published ReferencesFrancis Russell, "Volaire and Charles Townley," unpublished article in curatorial files, n.d. (See Bowron, North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 15 (1991), 8-9. H[enry] Blundell, An Account of the Statues, Busts, Bas-Reliefs, Cinerary Urns, and other Ancient Marbles, and Paintings, at Ince, collected by H.B. Liverpool, 1803, 227-28. H. Gronau, Ince Blundell Catalogue (Ince Blundell Hall, 1948), 56. J. Jacob, Pictures from Ince Blundell Hall (Liverpool: Walker Art Gallery, 1960), 6. Benedict Nicolson, Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Light, Vol. 1. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968), 19. M. Causa Picone, "Volaire," Antologia di Belle Arte, no. 5 (March 1978), 39 (incorrectly identified with the version at Christie's, 2/27/48, lot 65). John Canaday, "Sumptuous art of Naples under Bourbon rule," Smithsonian Magazine (December 1981), 75-83. "Purchases Approved for Museum Collection," North Carolina Museum of Art Calendar (May-June 1982), discussed 8, 12, illus. (b-w) 8-9, detail (b-w) cover. Edgar Peters Bowron, ed., Introduction to the Collections (Chapel Hill: published for the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, by The University of North Carolina Press, 1983), illus. (b-w) 154 and detail (color) frontispiece. JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) 252, no. 21 (December 7, 1984), 2694, illus. cover. Shirley Hazard, "In the Shadow of Vesuvius," The New York Times Magazine, Part 2: The Sophisticated Traveler (October 5, 1986), 26, detail illus. (color). Günter Herzog, Hubert Robert und das Bild im Garten (Worms: Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1989), cat. no. 130, illus. 192. Edgar Peters Bowron, "The most wonderful sight in Nature': Volaire's Eruption of Vesuvius, Commissioned by Henry Blundell," North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 15 (1991), discussed 1-12, illus. (color) 1, fig. 1, detail (color) cover, details (b-w) 4-6, figs. 2-4. Introduction to the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1992), illus. (color) 129. Roger Hudson, ed., The Grand Tour, 1592-1796 (London: The Folio Society, 1993), 8 (credit), 199, ref. to artist, illus. (color) 198. M. Therese Southgate, MD, The Art of JAMA (St. Louis: Mosby, 1996), 154-155, illus. (color) 155. Robert Watson, "Distances," in The Store of Joys, Huston Paschal, ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1997), 38-39, illus. (color) 38. Michael Parker, "Vesuvius: An Aria," in The Store of Joys, Huston Paschal, ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1997), 40-41, detail (color) 40. Joseph P. Covington, entry for The Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, Rebecca Martin Nagy, ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1998), 176, illus. (color) 176, detail (color) 168. Terrestrial Forces (exhibition catalogue) (Tallahassee: Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts, 2004), discussed 6-7, illus. (color) 6 (catalogue only, not in show). Pier Giovanni Guzzo, ed., Pompeii: Tales from an Eruption (exhibition catalogue) (Milan: Electa, 2007), detail (color) front cover; illus. (color) back cover. James R. Nelson, "An 18th-century view of Vesuvius," Birmingham, AL, The Birmingham News (December 2, 2007), discussed and illus. (b-w) 3F. Carol C. Mattusch, et al, Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples (exhibition catalogue) (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2008), cat. no. 121, briefly discussed 259, illus. (color) 260. Joseph P. Covington, entry for The Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2010), 358, illus. (color) 359. Émilie Beck Saiello, Pierre Jacques Volaire, 1729-1799 (Paris: Arthena, 2010), no. 82, discussed 80, 236-237, illus. (color) 81 and (b-w) 236. Karina Lykke Grand, Dansk Guldalder: Rejsebilleder (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2012), illus. (color) 112. Yuriko Jackall, et al., America Collects Eighteenth Century French Painting (exhibition catalogue) (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2017), noted 133, listed 285, illus. (color) 254–55. Peter Björn Kerber, Eyewitness Views: Making History in Eighteenth-Century Europe (exhibition catalogue) (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2017), mentioned 158, illus. (color) 159, fig. 180 (catalogue only, not in exhibition). Michael Parker, "Vesuvius: An Aria" in “You Are the River: Literature Inspired by the North Carolina Museum of Art,” edited by Helena Feder (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2021), illus (color) 108, 111 (detail). Roxann Wheeler, Eve Tavor Bannet, eds., Srinivas Aravamudan, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, vol. 46 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press for the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2017), illus. (color)

Exhibition HistoryBirmingham, AL, "Pompeii: Tales from an Eruption," October 14, 2007-January 14, 2008; Houston, TX, Museum of Fine Arts, February 24-June 15, 2008, detail (color) front cover; illus. (color) back cover. Washington, DC, "Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples," October 19, 2008-March 22, 2009; Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, May 3-October 4, 2009, cat. no. 121, illus. (color). Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art, “America Collects Eighteenth Century French Painting,” May 21–August 20, 2017, cat. noted 133, listed 285, illus. (color) 254–55. Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Reflections on Light: Works from the NCMA Collection,” September 9, 2020–August 15, 2021. Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–present.

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