Die Porta Capuana in Neapel

Die Porta Capuana in Neapel (The Porta Capuana in Naples), dated 1867 and in the Bavarian State Painting Collections, depicts one of Naples' most remarkable surviving Renaissance monuments: the Porta Capuana, a triumphal arch-gate built between 1484 and 1535 by Giuliano da Maiano and Giuliano da Sangallo, flanked by Aragonese towers. This gate, which gave access to the road leading to Capua and Rome, was one of the finest examples of Aragonese Renaissance architecture in southern Italy. Alt visited Naples during his Italian journeys of the 1860s and gave the city extensive topographic coverage, but the Porta Capuana was an unusual choice — more architecturally specific than his typical harbour or street panoramas. The Bavarian State Painting Collections acquired this work through the Munich art market as part of its holdings of nineteenth-century Austrian painting.

Canvas support enables Alt to render the gate's marble reliefs and flanking towers at a scale that captures both the overall composition and the carved surface detail. His handling of Renaissance marble in Neapolitan light — bleached to near-white in direct sun, with warm shadow zones — shows the same tonal approach he applied to classical Roman monuments.