Kaaz’ work moves between Classicism and Romanticism. He was the son-inlaw of the portraitist Graff, studied at the Dresden academy from 1797, and had close ties to Goethe and Friedrich. From 1801 to 1804 he travelled through Italy and used the sketches he made there his whole life. His Römische Landschaft remains a fragment. The view into the distance is finished, but the foreground with the framing trees only laid out. The absence of this portion shows how Kaaz has distanced himself in colouration, reduction of staffage, and the direction of the gaze from the ideal landscapes of the previous generation.