Giovanni Paolo Panini (Piacenza 1691-1765 Rome)

In his 1986 monograph on the artist, Professor Arisi dates this painting to circa 1758, comparing it with the signed and dated Capriccio in a private collection in Rome (op. cit., no. 491). The buildings and antiquities depicted in this work are celebrated examples of their type and would presumably have been chosen for their appeal to the Grand Tourist souvenir-hunters who formed a crucial proportion of Panini's clientele.