Rome: View of the Tiber

The painting shows a view of the Tiber with the Castel Sant’Angelo and St Peter’s Basilica. Joli painted the site on a number of occasions, introducing slight changes in the format, viewpoint and staffage of each representation. Several of the versions were based on drawings that the artist took with him around Europe. In each different version the artist varied the mood of the sky and the arrangement of the staffage, though the boatman ferrying two figures lower centre seems to be a constant.