Our drawing depicts the Via dell'Arco Oscuro taken from the upper part of the Parioli Hills.

This was a path that started from the Via Flaminia and skirted Villa Giulia, passing under an arch (hence the name), dug into the hill with a little Marian chapel inside. The road climbed towards the Parioli and led to the catacombs of San Valentino.

The Parioli Hills were open countryside until the beginning of the 20th century, from the top of the hill you could admire a wonderful view of the Basilica of San Pietro and the Tiber Valley.

Hieronymus Hess was born on April 15, 1799 in Basel.

At the age of 18, he began working at the art publishing house Birmann & Huber, copying and coloring the works of the painter Peter Birmann (1758-1844). At Birmann & Huber Hess met the Neapolitan art dealer and publisher C.T. Müller who offered him to work for his firm in Naples; Hess therefore went to Naples in 1819 and worked for Müller until 1820. In the Neapolitan city he came into contact with many artists, mainly Swiss.

Hess drew subjects of popular life which he then engraved on copper and colored by hand. He then stayed in Rome for two years, coming into contact with the group of ‘Nazarene’ painters; he met Philipp Veit (1793-1877), Friedrich Overbeck (1789-1869), Johann Christian Reinhart (1761-1847) and Joseph Anton Koch (1768-1839).

Two Roman works in particular have become well-known, the 'School of the Jews' (which he executed in several variations) and the 'Forced Sermon to the Jews' commissioned by Berthel Thorvaldsen.

He returned home via Siena, Florence, Bologna, Milan and arrived in Basel on 22 August 1823. During his three years in Basel, Hess dreamed of being able to go to Nurenberg  Dürer's city, to further perfect his figure painting, and finally went there in 1826.

In 1828, after returning home, he got married and in 1831 he obtained a permanent position as a teacher at a drawing school in Basel, which he left shortly thereafter.

After a long illness, Hieronymus Hess died on June 8, 1850 at the age of only 51.

Hieronymus Hess left behind a wide and varied pictorial production: genre scenes, portraits, caricatures, poetic and anticlerical satires, allegories, historical paintings. He was a technically versatile artist, demonstrating great mastery in both drawings and prints, and especially in watercolors. What distinguished him most was his humor, his unique talent for satirical and caricatural representations of common people as well as the good bourgeoisie.

His works are found in the Kupferstichkabinett of the Kunstmuseum in Basel as well as in private properties in Basel and in Europe.