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# Long description

This coloured engraving in landscape format shows a view looking down at the Colosseum in the mid-distance. In the centre foreground, on raised ground above the Colosseum, a young, dark-haired man reclines on the ground in a contemplative pose; he faces left, with his right hand placed on a block of ancient masonry and his left elbow propped on another fragment. He wears white trousers and a red shirt under a dark cloak. The Colosseum stands three tiers high on the left side and four tiers high on the right. Vegetation grows around the higher wall. In the far distance there is a wide plain with a terracotta-roofed building in the centre of the image and two further red rooved buildings to the right. Hills rise in the distance under dramatically billowing clouds.