View of Vesuvius from Posilippo

Wright of Derby’s views of extravagant and violent explosions (numbering thirty in all), with white lava shooting skywards, may never have been witnessed firsthand by the artist, who, in his few months spent in Naples, never saw anything more dramatic than lava pouring at snail’s pace down the mountain slopes. His pictures of raging flames and molten rocks almost certainly borrowed directly from Volaire, who had been an eye witness to all Vesuvius’s major eruptions since his arrival in Naples.