Naples, with the Castel dell' Ovo from the East

William Marlow was apprenticed to Samuel Scott between 1754 and 1759. He travelled to France and Italy in 1765, apparently at the suggestion of Elizabeth, Duchess of Northumberland (d.1776), one of his most important patrons, according to an unidentified obituary notice of 14 January 1813 (see J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish travellers in Italy 1701-1800, compiled from the Brinsley Ford Archive, New Haven and London, 1997). In Italy Marlow visited Venice, Florence, Rome, the Campagna and Naples and its environs, including Capri. He returned to England in 1766. Marlow does not actually seem to have painted in oil while he was abroad but made sketches, which he subsequently worked up into pen and ink compositional drawings, from which patrons were able to choose versions in oil or watercolour. He exhibited his first Italian subjects at the Society of Artists in 1767 and subsequently regularly exhibited such views.

In a letter dated 13 July 1984, Michael Liversidge dates this picture to circa 1768-70, and remarks on the rarity of a subject by the artist existing in only one known version.