In this painting, Johannes Lingelbach captures with beautiful acuity all that attracted artists from across Europe, including Lingelbach himself in the late 1640s, to Rome: the distinctive topography of rolling hills, the atmospheric light and the relics of antiquity. Such luxurious gardens could have been found at the villas of the Borghese or Doria Pamphilj families in the seventeenth century. The motif of the artist sketching from an ancient statue illustrates the formative role that traveling to the city held.