Claude Lorrain spent all his creative life in Rome. There he produced a host of drawn cityscapes, the majority of which were then used in his paintings. Lorrain is described a "poet" of Rome and its environs. He did indeed, perhaps more than any other, sense and convey the beauty of the Eternal City. The artist drew whole compositions or parts of them, studied individual details, the figures of people and animals. Sometimes he used black chalk in this work, but considerably more often a pen and brown wash.The drawing in the Hermitage collection is among the rare ones by the artist in which the main role is allotted to architecture. Fine lines and brushstrokes are used to convey details of buildings and designate human figures. The bright, sunlit architectural panorama is set off by the silhouette of a tree and a hill in the foreground.