View of the Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine from the Palatine

This work straddles the boundary between a sketch and a finished painting. Key monuments are shown as fragments of a compositional whole that is equal parts natural and urban, ancient and modern. In the foreground, the broken contours of a grassy row of arches playfully anticipate the forms of the architecture beyond. This Picturesque device contrasts with the purely functional scaffolding abutting the Colosseum, which was erected by the architect Giuseppe Valadier about 1822–23 to help stabilize the amphitheater’s long-crumbling outer wall.