This stamp issued by San Marino in 1970 is designed after a painting made by Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder which is preserved in the “Galleria Doria of Rome. Which represents a harbour landscape. The painting is known as the “Battaglia nel Golfo di Napoli”
Painting is not signed nor dated, we know only with certainty that it was in the Doria collections at least since 1794, when it was inventoried, perhaps from the collection of Peter Paul Rubens (1640) and before that from that of Cardinal Perrenot de Granvelle (1607), governor of the Netherlands.
The realistic painting of the port of Naples has led to the hypothesis that the work comes from on-site made drawings during a trip Bruegel made to Italy and most probably visited Naples in 1552. Uncertain is the date of the painting, however, it refers mostly on returning in Flanders towards 1556. The vessels were also the subject of a series of engravings of the years 1560-1565.
In the foreground you see a naval battle, which involves several galleys and galleons, among some puffs of smoke around the ships after firing guns, not any sea-battle took place at that time in the Bay of Naples, it must be an imaginative sea battle of the artist.
The background of the painting is the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius, depicted with a raised horizon, over more than half of the painting, typical of Flemish artists, which allows you to give a particularly bird-eye view. There are several monuments: on the left the remains of Castel dell'Ovo, Castel Nuovo, the Torro San Vincenzo and the semicircular piers. This last detail is imaginative elaboration of the artist, as in the topographic maps of that time the port is rectangular in shape.
More info is given on:
http://www.shipstamps.co.uk/forum/viewt ... 1615Source
Wikipedia and various other internet sites.
San Marino 1970 230Li sg891, scott728.