Ischia, view taken from the slopes of Mount Epomeo

Corot reached the Bay of Naples in 1828, near the end of his first long stay in Italy, and crossed to Ischia, the island at the bay's western edge. Mount Epomeo is its highest peak, and this study was painted partway up its slopes. He looks out over a few flat white roofs and a stretch of scrubby ground toward a cliff of ochre rock, with the sea beyond, a low line of distant coast and a two-peaked mountain on the horizon. More than half the canvas is sky, heaped with white cloud above a band of grey haze. A lone tree bends at the edge of the water on the left. The whole study measures only 26 by 40 centimetres.