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Turpin de Crissé is best known for his Italian views and landscapes. His most important works often bear two dates, which correspond to the date of the execution of the drawing in situ and to the execution of the painting in the studio once he had returned to Paris. Thus for the present painting, showing the Roman Forum with the temples of Vespasian and Saturn, the drawing was executed in situ in 1818, and the painting some twenty-four years later in 1842.
In the painting, Turpin has borrowed from eighteenth-century landscapists the trick of adopting a low viewpoint in order to accentuate the monumentality of the central ruin, the Temple of Vespasian, which is rendered with great attention to detail.
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