The Fountain at Grottaferrata

With its golden light and peaceful figures in a bucolic environment, this painting represents an idealized view of life in the Italian countryside, as seen through a German lens. Like many young artists of the period, German painter and etcher Ludwig Richter traveled to Rome to study Classical ruins and the Mediterranean landscape. The Fountain at Grottaferrata, completed some years after the artist returned to Germany, is based on his detailed drawings of the countryside just outside Rome. Richter carefully reproduced the features that made this site famous, such as the fortified monastery in the background.