In a format exceptionally large for the watercolor technique, the observer is offered a view of a wide tree-lined valley, traversed by a narrow river, with the soft green ridges shimmering in the distance. In the 1770s, Hackert, who had come to Italy in 1768, went on a number of hikes in the area around Rome and the Alban Hills, which provided him with the motifs for his outstanding views that would be formative for paintings of Italian landscapes. The area around the villages of Frascati, Grottaferrata or Olevano, which is a little further away, became the epitome of Italianità, which Hackert depicted in his conception of the veduta with his own mixture of precision and an idealizing artistic intervention. In the first half of the 1770s in particular, he used the watercolor technique, which he brought to true mastery in the fine glazes and the elaborately detailed foreground. Although the view cannot be localized more precisely, Hackert created a characteristic scenery of the Alban landscape with the village located on the stony hill and the staffage figure dressed in a typical local costume. By structuring the space, Hackert effectively plays with perspective; the two pines that appear mighty in the foreground find their distant echo in the valley’s ground, supplemented by two cypresses that are no less emblematic of Italian flora. Gently and skillfully, the gaze is guided from the elevated position down into the valley, to linger briefly on the river before continuing the hike into the expanse over hills and sky. Compositions like these make it easy to understand why Hackert was revered as one of the most important landscape painters during his lifetime; among others by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who met him in Italy and published his first biography posthumously in 1811. [KT]