This hitherto unpublished drawing depicts the participants at the Carnival celebrations held in the Great Hall of the Teatro San Carlo during Carnival in 1827. The celebrations were attended by King Francesco I of the Two Sicilies, attired in Persian splendour, and all his many courtiers. The drawing illustrates the disguises worn by the members of the Neapolitan royal family and of the aristocracy, who sport costumes in the Tatar, French and Scottish styles.

The King’s entourage includes gentlemen disguised as some of the great figures of Italian literature such as Dante, Petrarca, Tasso and Ariosto accompanied by their equally illustrious ladies, Beatrice, Laura, Eleonora and Ginevra. A long set of captions identifies the figures and their respective costumes.

The drawing in ink and wash on paper belonged, along with a large number of objects, pictures, items of furniture and household goods, to the collection of Queen Maria Isabella di Borbone (1789–1848), infanta of Spain and Queen of the Two Sicilies, the wife of King Francesco I.

Following the King’s death in 1830, Isabella married her second husband, Count Francesco del Balzo di Presenzano who, on her demise in 1848, inherited a large part of her personal belongings which then passed to his numerous heirs by right of descent.

This drawing hung in the couple’s residence, the upper apartment in the Villa of Capodimonte. It is described as being in the fifth room on page 357v. of the general inventory, which mentions “a picture of three and a half palms by one and a half, a coloured drawing depicting the masked ball held by the Royal Court at San Carlo in eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, with gilded frame and a glass plate in front of it”.