Foldout panorama of the bay of Naples from the mole round to the Castel' del' Ovo, taken from the Villa di Moma in the Santa Lucia quarter, with Mount Vesuvius in the centre on the far side of the bay.

The artist, Antonio Senape was born in Rome in 1788: he was one of the most prolific 'vedutisti' (view painters) of the early to mid-19th century, working largely in pen and ink; also calling himself a 'restorer and teacher' - probably to visitors in the latter case. He was still living in Rome in 1815 but travelled all over Italy and to Switzerland, and particularly worked in Naples of which he did at least one other known panorama (1834) but probably more. Little is known of his life, and most of that from the detailed inscriptions on his drawings, which (as in this case) often say where he was living at the time. He is sometimes said to have died in 1842, or 1850, but evidence in his drawings suggests he was still working in the 1850s.