Marina con barche e pescatori

This painting of a harbour with boats and fishermen has an extremely simple structure: a fishing boat with two large sails unfurled side by side rests between sky and sea. The sail nearest to the viewer is set in the opposite direction to the sun on the horizon and therefore seems darker, while the other sail, partly hidden by the first, is bathed in light. There is another boat further in the background.
There is a clear narrative element here in the description of the tasks the fishermen are carrying out in order to manoeuvre the boat. The desire to narrate events as they happen is typical of 19th-century Italian art, and in Neapolitan painting this is done with great directness and enjoyment of the anecdote.
The sunset suffuses the entire composition with a rich range of tonalities that vary as the shadow advances subtly across the scene.