The Strait of Messina, Sicily from the west, with a view of the fortifications and port

Alexandre-Hyacinthe Dunouy started his career painting views of Paris and its surrounds before turning to Italian subjects and depictions of the Auvergne, Savoy and area around Lyon later in his career. He exhibited at the Salon regularly between 1791 and 1833 and presented another view of Messina which included Tivoli and its environs at the Salon of 1795 (no. 166). He probably first travelled to Italy in the 1780s and was again there in 1810 at the behest of Joachim Murat, then King of Naples. Dunouy’s classically composed landscapes are often small in scale and painted with tremendous detail and clear, even lighting, effects which he equally achieves in this large-scale canvas.