Römische Kirche (Ansicht der Certosa bei Pavia von Westen)

Römische Kirche (Ansicht der Certosa bei Pavia von Westen) (View of the Certosa di Pavia from the West), dated 1866 and in the Art Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany, shows Alt engaging with one of northern Italy's most extraordinary ecclesiastical buildings: the Certosa di Pavia, a Carthusian monastery-church south of Milan whose white marble facade is among the most elaborate examples of Italian Gothic-Renaissance hybrid architecture in existence. Alt's Italian journeys of the 1860s were the most productive of his career, and the Certosa presented a technical challenge entirely different from the smooth classical facades he usually depicted — its writhing surface decoration, polychrome marble inlay, and layered Gothic pinnacles required a new approach to architectural surface description.

Oil on canvas at documentary scale allows Alt to render the Certosa's facade detail without the abstraction that watercolour washes might impose. His handling of white marble in Italian light — bright in direct sun, cream-toned in shadow — uses a constrained palette of whites, warm greys, and ochres to distinguish material from illumination.