Figures in the Ruins of the Roman Forum

His work epitomizing the second generation of Italianate painters, which included Both and Berchem, Asselijn was one of the most influential artists during the second third of the Dutch Golden Age. A painter of landscapes, seascapes, genre and battle scenes, Asselijn travelled in France and Italy, and worked in Rome for many years, where he specialized in the portrayal of animals and the ruins of the Roman Campagna.
He executed some thirty works depicting arches in ruins and rocky grottoes. This outstanding Italianate landscape is reminiscent of Both’s works in the contrast of its small figures with the immense natural setting, under light of an ideal purity, the legacy of the French master Claude who was living in Italy.