With public art collections closed we are bringing the art to you, exploring highlights from across the country in partnership with Art UK. Today’s pick: The Festival of the Madonna dell’Arco (1777) by Pietro Fabris at Compton Verney in Warwickshire
It is Pasquetta (Easter Monday) in the Neapolitan countryside. Crowds of revellers gather, enjoying the spring air and each other’s company. Figures recline beneath the trees, smoking and picnicking, while in the sunlit foreground a group of young girls dance the tarantella, accompanied by musicians. One of the musicians plays a triccheballacche, a traditional percussive instrument of southern Italy, with three hammers that produces a sound like a tambourine. The crowds are headed towards the church of the Madonna dell’Arco, on the right, which had been a popular place of pilgrimage since 1450, when a fresco of the virgin and child was accidentally struck by a ball and, as legend has it, began to bleed. The veneration of the shrine intensified after it survived the eruption of Vesuvius in 1631 – this smouldering icon of Naples which features on the far left of the painting.
This 1777 work is one of Pietro Fabris’s largest and most elaborate canvases. It was originally one of a pair of festive scenes, its pendant showing a nocturnal festival in nearby Posillipo. Fabris painted the works for Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803), the British envoy in Naples. Both men shared an interest in Neapolitan costumes and customs. In 1773 Fabris had produced a book of prints depicting costumes of Naples dedicated to Hamilton, and in 1776 they collaborated on the Campi Phlegraei, a book detailing volcanic sites and artefacts.
