View of Messina Harbor

Cassas studied with both Neoclassical and Rococo painters. He made extensive travels throughout his life, and is best known for his views, including Rome, Venice, Naples, Sicily, the Istrian and Dalmatian coasts, Constantinople, Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Cyprus, and Asia Minor. He drew Classical ruins and many ancient Middle Eastern that had never before been recorded. Back in France, after the Revolution he was appointed as drawing professor at the Gobelins Tapestry Manufactory, where he remained until his death. In addition to his views, he is known for around 745 models of ancient monuments in cork and terracotta that he made for Paris's École des Beaux-Arts; these influenced Neoclassicism's development in the early 1800s.