View of the Temple of Peace in the Roman Forum

George Loring Brown spent almost a year in Rome in the 1840s and created many sketches and paintings. He painted this piece twenty years later, while living in Boston with his family. He tried to establish himself as a painter of American landscapes, but found that his patrons far preferred his Italian scenes (Landscapes of Europe and America 1834-1880, George Loring Brown, Robert Hull Fleming Museum, 1973). This painting shows the ruins of the Temple of Peace, near the Coliseum in Rome, with St. Peter's Basilica rising in the distance.