Known in the 1860s for his quintessentially American paintings of the New England coastline, William Haseltine had by 1867 moved permanently to Europe. He had been in Europe before, studying in the 1850s in Dusseldorf alongside fellow Americans Albert Bierstadt (1830- 1902) and T. Worthington Whittredge (1820-1920). It was the Dusseldorf style of robust draftsmanship and meticulous rendering that characterized Haseltine's painting style throughout his career. This view of the Church and Hermitage of Santa Maria a Cetrella on Capri's highest point, Monte Solaro, appealed greatly to American collectors and typifies the works that Haseltine produced during his sojourn in Europe. Haseltine began his studies in his native Philadelphia and continued at Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1854. He enjoyed early success, and by 1855 was exhibiting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. With several years' study abroad to his credit, he returned to the United States and became known in the 1860's for a series of sixteen paintings of a rocky outcropping at Nahant in Massachusetts Bay. As early as the 1820s this small peninsula was services daily by steamboat from Boston; by the 1860s, Nahant had become a popular excursion for Bostonians seeking escape from the city. Haseltine's careful depiction of a recognizable site became a strategy that he often used. The death of his first wife in childbirth in 1864 and his remarriage two years later may have prompted a return to Europe and a move to Rome in 1867, The Eternal City serves fro most of Haseltine's subsequent years in Europe at his home and point of departure for sketching trips throughout the continent. Rome had long been popular with American tourists, and post-Civil War prosperity provided the means for even middle-class Americans, like the feckless heroine of Henry James's novella, Daisy Miller, to travel abroad. An 1892 inventory of paintings in Haseltine's studio notes that several are destined for American collectors. Haseltine made his first visit to Capri in 1856, and returned in the spring of 1857 and 1858, when, according to his daughter and biographer, Helen Haseltine Plowden, he lodged at a local monastery. In, Anacapri, Haseltine lavished attention on the rocks of the promontory in the foreground and the striking cactus plants that cover it. Tiny boats, mere specks in the water, emphasize the vertiginous height of the monastery. The artist was influenced by the writings of John Ruskin and took to heart his urgings to artists to relay every rock and rill. Haseltine later wrote, 'Every real artist is also a scientist."