Three massive stone arches, their blocks weathered pink and gray and sprouting grass, frame three separate views of Rome. Through them appear rooftops, church towers and distant ruins under a blue sky with heaped white clouds that darken over the city. In front, rough grass and fallen stones cover the ledge of the Colosseum's upper story. Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg painted it during his stay in Rome of 1813–1816, presumably in 1815, working on site in the open air, something previously unknown in Danish art; SMK says he undoubtedly used binoculars for the distant details.

The view is a construct: standing at the central arch he could see only the middle scene, and had to take two steps to the left or five to the right to see the others. After Eckersberg became a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1818, his students could study his Roman scenes in his residence at Charlottenborg, which helped shape the Danish Golden Age. SMK, which acquired the canvas in 1911, calls it his most famous painting. It is in the SMK in Copenhagen.