In 1860 Harpignies departed for Rome for the second time, this time with Corot, who would deeply influence the much younger artist. Both favored carefully chosen viewpoints and skillfully balanced precise detail with clever simplification to provide their landscapes a timeless monumentality.

Though, in 1862, the Gazette des Beaux-Arts noted ‘that successes were rapidly accumulating for Harpignies’, the artist left Paris again for Rome and its surrounds; he remained there for the next two years painting and occasionally sending work home to France for exhibition. It is notable that the Emperor himself purchased one of the artist’s recent Italian landscapes at the 1865 Salon (held soon after Harpignies’s returned to Paris); the painting here was exhibited there with the Emperor’s. In the foreground of this Roman view, one can see the Colosseum nestled behind the Arch of Titus; to its right the church of Sant’Omobono is recognisable. In the distance stand the Lateran palace and St John Lateran.