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This painting shows an imaginary picture gallery hung with views of ancient Roman monuments and furnished with antiquities. In its pendant, now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the views are of contemporary Rome and the sculptures date from the sixteenth and seventeenth century. The painting s in this gallery are by the painter of the picture, Giovanni Paolo Pannini, who stands in the centre wearing a frock-coat and holding his palette and brush. He is accompanied by four other men, one of whom supports the frame of the ancient wall painting known as the Aldobrandini Wedding that another studies closely. Distributed across the foreground are antique sculptures, including the Farnese Hercules, the Dying Gaul, the Silenus with the Infant Bacchus, the Borghese Vase and the Loacoön. Two students with drawing boards are preparing to make drawings of these antiquities.
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