ART WIKI 32,963 on view

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Collections: Art Institute of Chicago, Getty Villa, Harvard Art Museums, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, J. Paul Getty Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Musée du Louvre, National Gallery of Art, National Museum of Asian Art, National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian), Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Rijksmuseum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, SMK — National Gallery of Denmark, State Hermitage Museum, State Russian Museum, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Tretyakov Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, State Catalogue of the Museum Fund of Russia (274 museums), Europeana (19 museums), Wikidata (6 museums), Paris Musées (12 museums), and Joconde, the French Ministry of Culture's museum database (495 museums). Images belong to their rights holders.

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Smithsonian American Art Museum
Neapolitan Song

Neapolitan Song, Joseph Stella, 1929

Joseph Stella, portrait

Joseph StellaAmerican, 1877–1946

Neapolitan Song

1929 · Painting · 97.5 × 71.7 cm

May one see it?

Unknown

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Washington, D.C., United States

The owner is known; whether it is on view today is not.

In this state since: Sep 25, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

About the painting

Stella believed that every day should "begin and end [with] the painting of a flower." The exotic plants he sketched in the Bronx Botanical Garden resurface in this imaginary scene of the Bay of Naples, drawn with the precision and love of nature that Stella absorbed from Italy's Renaissance painters. The tips of the palmetto leaf radiate across the picture plane like a visible, unfolding wave of sound. Stella had moments of homesickness, when images of his homeland came to him as clearly as when he first arrived in America in 1896. Here, it is as if the Neapolitan song is reaching across the sea, bridging the distance between Stella's old home and his adopted country.

Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Particulars

1929 · aged 52

18771946

Accession number: 2000.11

What it shows

Mountains Landscape Animal Bird Plants

In the catalog

Paintings Oil Italian painting American painting Modernism 20th century

Sources

Smithsonian American Art Museum
Image: Smithsonian American Art Museum — CC0

More by Joseph Stella

First Light, Joseph Stella, c. 1928

First Light

c. 1928 · The Museum of Modern Art

By-Products Plants, Joseph Stella, 1923–26

By-Products Plants

1923–26 · Art Institute of Chicago

The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme, Joseph Stella, 1939

The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme

1939 · Whitney Museum of American Art

Flowers, Joseph Stella

Flowers

Not on view · National Gallery of Art

a) Seated Boy b) ( Boy's Face), Joseph Stella, (n.d.)

a) Seated Boy b) ( Boy's Face)

(n.d.) · Not on view · The Museum of Modern Art

Marguerite Singel, Joseph Stella, (n.d.)

Marguerite Singel

(n.d.) · Not on view · The Museum of Modern Art

Old Man, Joseph Stella, 1898

Old Man

1898 · Not on view · The Museum of Modern Art

Burlesque Theater, Joseph Stella, c. 1900

Burlesque Theater

c. 1900 · Not on view · National Gallery of Art

Neighbors at Smithsonian American Art Museum

Muskrat, Unidentified, before 1997

Unidentified

Muskrat, before 1997

Bright Light at Russell's Corners, George Ault, 1946

George Ault

Bright Light at Russell's Corners, 1946

Fish Decoy, Unidentified, ca. 1940

Unidentified

Fish Decoy, ca. 1940

(Lobster on Black Background), Marsden Hartley, 1940-1941

Marsden Hartley

(Lobster on Black Background), 1940-1941

May Snow, Torvald Arnst Hoyer, 1937

Torvalt Arnt Hoyer

May Snow, 1937

San Diego Mission, Josephine Joy, ca. 1935-1939

Josephine Joy

San Diego Mission, ca. 1935-1939

Industry, Arthur Durston, 1934

Arthur Durston

Industry, 1934

Employment of Negroes in Agriculture, Earle Richardson, 1934

Earle Richardson

Employment of Negroes in Agriculture, 1934

On the same theme · Mountains

All works on the theme

Half Dome and Moon, Yosemite Valley, Ansel Adams, 1960

Ansel Adams

Half Dome and Moon, Yosemite Valley, 1960

Not on view · National Gallery of Art

Mount Williamson, Sierra Nevada, from Manzanar, California, Ansel Adams, 1944, printed 1960s

Ansel Adams

Mount Williamson, Sierra Nevada, from Manzanar, California, 1944, printed 1960s

Not on view · National Gallery of Art

Clear Weather with a Southerly Wind, Katsushika Hokusai, 1829 - 1833

Katsushika Hokusai

Clear Weather with a Southerly Wind, 1829 - 1833

Rijksmuseum

Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)", Katsushika Hokusai, 1830/33

Katsushika Hokusai

The Great Wave off Kanagawa, 1830/33

Not on view · Art Institute of Chicago

Landscape with Sportsman and Dog, Rembrandt van Rijn, c. 1653

Rembrandt van Rijn

Landscape with Sportsman and Dog, c. 1653

Not on view · National Gallery of Art

View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow, Thomas Cole, 1836

Thomas Cole

The Oxbow, 1836

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, Albert Bierstadt, 1863

Albert Bierstadt

The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, 1863

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tahitian Shore [recto], Paul Gauguin, c. 1900

Paul Gauguin

Tahitian Shore [recto], c. 1900

Not on view · National Gallery of Art