The Port of Salerno from Vietri, with herdsmen and other figures in the foreground, with the Castello di Arechi beyond and shipping vessels in the bay

Dated 1797, this spectacular view of the Port of Salerno belongs to the series of large paintings depicting The Ports of the Kingdom that were painted by Hackert for King Ferdinand IV of Naples before the artist’s flight from the city in 1799. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, his friend and biographer, records, when the French invaded Naples there were three paintings of harbour scenes in Hackert’s studio; he was only able to save these works by protesting that he had not received payment for them and, therefore, they were still his property and not that of the King. This picture is almost certainly the ‘Port de Salerne’ listed in the inventory of Hackert’s estate at his house in San Pietro di Carreggi, just outside the gates of Florence, where the artist died in 1807.

In summarising the skills of the artist, Goethe concluded that Hackert had an ‘...unglablische Meisterschaft, die Natur abzuschreiben’; an amazing ability to capture nature. Such aptitude was first developed at the Berlin Akademie, where Hackert encountered the lifelong dual influences of Dutch 17th century landscape painting and the art of Claude. After travelling through northern Germany, Hackert went to Stockholm, and then on to Hamburg and Paris, before journeying to Italy in 1768. He eventually settled in Rome in 1768, remaining there until 1786, when he was appointed Court Painter to King Ferdinand IV of Naples. In 1798, the Neapolitan court fled to Palermo to escape the French occupying forces, and the following year, in the face of ever-growing civil unrest, Hackert left for Tuscany where he remained for the rest of his life.