Bandits on a Rocky Coast

Neapolitan by birth, Salvator Rosa spent most of his life between Florence and Rome. He developed a particular type of landscape that became especially popular in the following centuries. It is typical for Rosa to place groups of small figures, in the guise usually of bandits or soldiers, within the context of rugged and menacing landscapes. The ferocity of the protagonists of these pictures is highlighted by the character of the landscape around them. Paintings such as this were particularly loved and collected in eighteenth-century England.