Catel's paintings of Italian landscapes with fishermen, dancers or monks were appreciated throughout Europe. His oil sketches tended to circulate among artists and early collectors of this technique. Unusually, however, Catel also created a considerable number of oil sketches as templates for prints. The rocky coastal landscape with the troubled sea and sailing boats served as a template for a Print in a new edition of the Aeneid. It is not intended to depict an Italian scene, but rather The Coast of Itaka off the north-east coast of Cephalonia in western Greece, the birthplace of Odysseus.