The Great Waterfall at Tivoli near Rome

In 1769, a year after he came to Italy, Jacob Philipp Hackert spent several months with his brother at Tivoli, in the hills east of Rome, painting its waterfalls. This view came about 20 years later, in 1790. The town sits on the ridge at the top, the river Aniene pours out beneath it in several falls, and the water gathers into a rushing stream in the foreground. He keeps everything clear and matter-of-fact, down to the cattle resting on the bank and a herdsman sitting under a tree with his dog. The Belvedere notes one older habit in the foam, which curls in neat decorative scrolls, a leftover of Baroque painting. On the rock face just above the cattle he wrote the place and his name in Italian, Filippo Hackert, with the year.