A Very Victorian Spectacle

This vivid little Neapolitan School gouache shows the 1839 eruption of Vesuvius from a slightly unsual viewpoint—part-way up the mountainside rather than the more typical (and more elegant) vantage point of across the waters of the Bay of Naples. It got me marvelling at how close the intrepid Victorian traveller could get to the summit, often by the comfort of sedan-chair, before the introduction of the funicular railway in 1880.