In 1894 the Livorno painter Giovanni Fattori was 69 years old and during the summer, as well as in those years, he was a guest in the villa of the Florentine businessman and politician Antonio Civelli in Antignano, south of Livorno, to give painting lessons to the daughter Corinna, portrayed by him a year earlier in La scolarina (1893, private collection). The stay in Antignano and the making of this painting are documented in a letter dated July 31, 1894 to the pupil Adele Galeotti, in which Fattori refers to the measurements of the painting and underlines its workmanship "from life".

The Livorno hills above Antignano, bathed in sunlight, are the true protagonists of this painting. The oblique cut of the slope that descends towards the sea divides the scene clearly in two: on the left the warm colors of the earth alternate with the changing greens of the vegetation; on the right the blue tones of the sky and the sea prevail, interrupted only by small dark boats. Compared to other works of the same period, this one stands out for its diffused brightness, for a less synthetic and more minute brushstroke, for the careful play between light and shadow through fine passages between light and dark.