Simon DENIS (Antwerp, 1755 - Naples, 1813) Vesuvius in eruption Paper mounted on cardboard Dated in the paste in the lower right corner : " 1804 ". 46 x 61 cm Alongside his works for the aristocratic clientele of the "Grand Tour", Simon Denis' work includes a series of plein air studies, generally on paper. These works done on the spot, revealed on the occasion of the exhibition Paysage d'Italie (Annales du Muséum d'histoire naturelle, Paris, 1804, vol.5, p.448-461), offer a freedom of motif and framing reminiscent of those of Valenciennes, who returned to Paris in 1785 and whom Denis might have known before his departure in 1786 for Italy. In his Voyage de Paris à Naples and in the note he devotes to Simon Denis in his Dictionnaire des artistes néerlandais (Eijnden, Roeland van, Willigen, Adriaan van der, Geschiedenis der Vaderlandsche Schilderkunst, Haarlem, A. Loosjes, 1816-20, pp. 315-318), Denis' compatriot, the writer Adriaan van der Willigen, reports that in 1805 Denis was working on a commission for Spain depicting the eruption of Vesuvius in September 1804. This painting, which has now disappeared, represented the lava flow invading the crops, which frightened peasants tried to save at the risk of their lives; but above all, while visiting the artist's studio, he noticed several studies and sketches, including one in particular, which was done on the spot near the volcano at the very moment of the eruption. This last one could correspond to ours. Our view of Vesuvius represents the height of the eruption in 1804. It is the panorama that could be seen near the Villa Angelica, the observatory used by Sir Hamilton to write his Campi Phlegraeri between 1776 and 1779, the founding texts of vulcanology.