Reinhold arrived in Rome in November 1819 and travelled to Naples and Sicily in the following April. In 1823 he came back a second time, now with Johann Joachim Faber. He produced a wealth of drawings and oil sketches along the coast, near Sorrento and on the isle of Capri. OnJune 18^th 1823, he captured the waves near the Grotta di Cocumella. Reinhold was interested in the constant movement and change of the waves and the translucency and colour of the water. In a second study, which was created on the same day and from the same perspective, the waves pile up on the shore, here they are just breaking.