American landscape painter William Stanley Haseltine visited Capri in 1858 after having arrived in Italy with fellow painters Thomas Worthington Whittredge and Emanuel Leutze. While there, Haseltine stayed in the Carthusian Monastery of St. John, which sat atop the limestone cliff he depicts in this painting.
With Capri visible in the distance, Haseltine shows the ruins of Villa Jovis, erected by Emperor Tiberius on the cliff’s eastern summit in the first century. His re-creation of the diffused, atmospheric light of dawn further amplifies the scene’s beauty.
