The Arno river near Casaccia

This 1863 view of the Arno near Casaccia places Abbati along one of Italy's most historically and aesthetically freighted rivers, the waterway that runs through Florence and has featured in Italian painting since Giotto's time. Casaccia is a small locality upstream or downstream from Florence, in the Arno valley that the Macchiaioli explored extensively. Unlike the grand perspectival views of the Arno that earlier painters had constructed from elevated viewpoints, Abbati's approach is intimate and ground-level — he is interested in the river as a surface for light, a horizontal reflective plane set between vegetated banks. The three Arno and river paintings Abbati made around 1863 (including "House at the River" in this dataset) form a coherent group exploring how Italian rivers behave as optical phenomena.

The river surface is rendered through horizontal strokes that convey the movement and reflective quality of water. Abbati manages the tonal relationship between the river, its banks, and the sky above with his characteristic directness. Vegetation along the banks is described through masses of green-grey rather than individual leaf forms. The overall palette is cooler than Abbati's architectural studies, reflecting the river valley's ambient moisture.