HORACE GREVENBROECK (Milan, 1676 - Naples, 1739) Mediterranean Harbour with Lighthouse and Vessels Oil on canvas, 42.2X84.3 cm Provenance: Mrs J. Cromwell Collection New York, Christie's, 4 November 1983, lot 140 (as Tommaso Ruiz) London, Sotheby's, 30 October 1991, lot 202 (as Joseph Ruiz) Milan, private collection Datable to the 18th century, this fanciful harbour view can be ascribed to an artist of Nordic origin, but undoubtedly influenced by that art of Italianising taste that spread during the Baroque age. The canvas in question, in fact, combines picturesque taste with landscape painting in the Roman tradition, creating an Arcadian mixture that finds precise references with the production of Giovanni and Orazio Grevenbroeck. We know that Giovanni belonged to a family of Dutch origin already active in the mid 17th century and Jan Grevenbroeck stayed in Rome in 1667 and Milan, where his sons Alessandro and Orazio were born in 1668 and 1676. Orazio moved to Naples and, together with Joseph and Tommaso Ruiz, inaugurated Neapolitan Vedutism and his works display a light touch of rocaille-like colours, in which the Dutch ancestry of his training can be recognised. The affinities between Orazio and Juan Ruiz (active in Naples from 1720 onwards) are particularly evident, so much so as to generate an inevitable attributional confusion that, thanks to recent studies conducted by Fabrizio Dassie, has found an appropriate philological order among the various exponents of the Grevenbroeck family, distinguishing the production of Giovanni, Orazio and Alessandro. Reference Bibliography: N. Spinosa, N. Di Mauro, Le Vedute napoletane del Settecento, Naples 1989, p. 191, no. 51, fig. 47 M. Utili, in Napoli nella veduta dal Quattrocento all'Ottocento, exhibition catalogue edited by N. Spinosa, Naples 1990, p. 392 F. Dassie, I Grevenbroeck, Verona 2019, ad vocem