Monumental  nightly view of Naples and Vesuvius was executed by German painter of histories, battles, portraits, landscapes and cityscape's Louis Kolitz ( 1845 Tilsit - 1914 Berlin). From 1879 to 1911 he was director of the Academy in Kassel. 1879 he became the director of the Art Academy in Kassel. 

Louis Kolitz studied from 1862 to 1864 at the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin, from 1864 to 1869 at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. He was a student of Oswald Achenbach, Carl Ferdinand Sohn and Eduard Bendemann. As a volunteer he took part in the Austro-Prussian War in 1866 and in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870/71.

From 1872 to 1879 Kolitz lived as a portrait painter in Düsseldorf and was a member of the Malkasten artists' association. In addition, he also created several paintings with scenes from the war of 1870/71, which were rejected by the critics of the time because of their dark coloring and critical realism.

He kept traveling until he was old: to Paris, to Norderney for a summer holiday, to Holland and Italy.

Today, he appears much more important as the painter of numerous landscape sketches and paintings in the style of Impressionism as early as the early 1870s. Through them he could be considered a pioneer of German Impressionism if they hadn't first become known through the commemorative exhibition marking the 75th birthday of the Heinemann Gallery (Munich 1920). The Neue Galerie Kassel was able to acquire some of them from his daughter Martha Heydemann, but some are probably still waiting to be discovered unnoticed (since they are rarely signed).

The Neue Galerie Kassel keeps the largest complex of works in public ownership, individual works are owned by the Nationalgalerie Berlin, the art museums in Düsseldorf, Bremen and others.

Literature: art lexicons by Friedrich von Boetticher; Thieme/Becker. 

Inscription: signed lower right.

Technique: oil on canvas, original  period frame.

Measurements: unframed w 23 5/8” x h 17 3/4” (108 x 83 cm), framed w 29 1/2” x h 23 5/8” (124 x 99 cm).

Condition: in good  condition, relining of canvas.