View at Amalfi, Bay of Salerno

This picture was painted in Rome in 1857 at a time when Brown was so busy supplying mementos of Italy to American tourists that he had to hire an assistant to lay out compositions. The picturesque view of one of the most popular seascapes of the early nineteenth century appears to have been based on a small oil sketch called "View of Amalfi near Naples" (Shelburne Museum, Vermont) that was painted in Rome in 1856. It is likely that he produced several finished paintings from one sketch, varying each of the scenes slightly. Brown's work was heavily influenced by the harbor and coast scenes of Claude Lorrain, but also bears a resemblance to canvases by the German painters Jakob and Rudolph Alt.