An aerial view of Pozzuoli and the Campi Flegrei

French by birth, Didier Barra probably left Metz around 1608 and moved to Italy. He was active in Naples from about 1630 onwards, where he came into contact with landscape and townscape painters from the north, who influenced his evolving style. His most celebrated work is the Panoramic view of Naples, from the Bay of Naples (Museo di San Martino, Naples), which is signed and dated 'Desiderius Barra ex civitate Methensi in Lotharingia, F. 1647'.

The carefully rendered topographical detail in this view of Pozzuoli and the Campi Flegrei is a characteristic of Barra's work that has led to some scholars to suggest that the artist trained as a cartographer early in his career. Another version of the present picture, with variations, is in the Della Vecchia collection, Naples (see M. R. Nappi, François De Nomé e Didier Barra, l'enigma Monsù Desiderio, Milan, 1991, p. 224, no. C 3). As Nappi notes, this topographical view derives from Francesco Villamena's engravings of Pozzuoli of 1622 (ibid., pp. 223-4).