The Cascades at Tivoli with the Temple of Sibyl and a Shepherdess in the foreground

This monumental landscape was first exhibited in Paris in the Salon of 1822, the year in which it was signed and dated. The original owner of the painting was Juste de Barbet de Jouy, known as 'Barbet l'ain', the celebrated Norman textile manufacturer who died in 1866; two years after completing the present painting, Dunouy was again commissioned by Barbet to execute Une Vue de la Valle de Jouy et de la Manufacture de M. Barbet l'ain.

Dunouy travelled to Italy in 1795, and henceforth made numerous depictions of Tivoli and its famous waterfalls. The subject was a favorite tourist site from the 18th century onward, and had long been a staple of French painting. In the present canvas, Dunouy rearranged the meandering Aniense river at the foot of the falls to create a heightened picturesque effect. The painting was certainly made in the studio -- probably based on drawings that Dunouy had earlier made at the actual site -- and constructed along the principles of landscape painting that date back to the 17th-century masters of classical landscape, Poussin, Claude and Dughet.