Castellamare: A Neapolitan Girl kneeling by a Column, holding a basket of fruit, with a view of the harbour below

After his first visit to Italy in 1824 Uwins turned increasingly towards the picturesque Italian subjects for which he is best remembered. In a letter written to John Chalon from Naples in January 1826 Uwins remarked that: 'nothing that we saw in Switzerland can be compared, in my opinion, with the luxurious and overpowering richness of the neighbourhood of Naples. Here is to be found every combination that poetry can invent, or painting can desire.' (see S. Uwins, A Memoir of Thomas Uwins R.A., East Ardsley, 1978, p. 173).