Throughout the latter part of the 18th century, successive generations of German artists visited Italy in order to study the acknowledged masterpieces of antiquity and the Renaissance. After an unsatisfactory initial course of study of printmaking in Basel, Dies set out on foot to Rome where he remained for twenty years working as a painter and etcher. This etching of an artist sketching a picturesque view at Tivoli came from a series of Italian views. Although at the time Dies’s work was criticized for being executed too freely, this composition articulates the Romantic landscapist’s bond with nature that dominated 19th-century German art.