Together with Ludwig Richter and Carl Wagner, Oehme belonged to a generation that, traditionally trained at the Dresden Academy, aspired to a freer art. A trip to Italy promised liberation, where new paths were explored far from the shackles of home in a light that transformed everything. ‘I imagined the Campagna di Roma to be much more disgusting than I found it,’ wrote Dorothea Schlegel in 1818. There is little evidence of this sceptical view in the watercolour. It shows the Campagna in saturated colours, from intense brown-green, through countless shades of green, blue and violet to the light blue sky.