'Gruppi di Napoli. Calesso di Resina' [Neapolitan groups: a Resina caleche]

(Updated, October 2017) This line print of a Neapolitan excursion shows a very overpacked 'calesso' - or caleche - a light horse-drawn carriage with a fold-up hood, in this case clearly a public-hire example from the number 'RESINA 246' visible on the side behind the wheel. Two caparaisoned horses are pulling it: at the front is the driver and behind him, in the crowded back seat, three women and a baby. Standing on the running board at the back are two men and a child crouched down. Slung beneath, in a basket, is what appears to be fodder for the horses. In the background to the left is a distant sailing ship in the Bay of Naples with land behind that may be the island of Capri. To the right a Neapolitan boat is drawn up, covered over, on the beach along which the carriage is being driven. Resina was the town that in the Middle Ages developed immediately on the coast below Mount Vesuvius on the site of buried Roman Herculaneum, destroyed in the eruption of AD79. Now part of greater Naples between Portici and Torre del Greco, it was formally renamed Ercolano in 1969. The publisher inscription, lower right, translates at ' Sold by Giorgio Glass opposite San Ferdinando, [at] No. 54'. PAH6213 is another of the series, though how many there were is unconfirmed. They appear to be rare images and nothing else seems known of Glass or his business.

Object Details

ID: PAH6214
Type: Print
Display location: Not on display
Creator: Glass, Giorgio; Ferdinando, S.
Date made: circa 1800
Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Herschel Collection
Measurements: Sheet: 324 x 422 mm; Plate: 261 x 347 mm
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