Giovanni Paolo Panini was the most celebrated Roman landscape painter of his time and painted many of the most iconic vistas of the city, including the Colosseum, the Piazza Navona, and here, the Roman Forum. As was characteristic of Panini's practice, in this view across the Forum towards the Arch of Titus, the artist has depicted faithfully certain buildings and ruins while altering and even eliminating others, particularly modern buildings, in order not to obstruct his vista. Using refined skills of observation alongside careful artistic composition, Panini creates an aesthetic vision of the city that appealed to the tastes of the time.

As well as capturing the architectural highlights of the Forum, this painting includes idealised figures who animate the ruins and give life to the vista. Revitalising the ancient scene with eighteenth-century characters, Panini refreshed present work and made it undeniably contemporary. The range of figures depicted - strolling gentlemen contemplating the antiquities, perhaps the tourists who will purchase such paintings as this, and gypsies and peasants who simply make the ruins their home - would have been familiar to Panini's patrons and collectors.

Panini was prolific and painted numerous veduti - there are comparable views of the Roman Forum in the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.