View of Rome with Figures

Pieter Stevens was primarily a landscape painter and draughtsman in Antwerp in 1589 until he was appointed court painter to Emperor Rudolf II in Prague in 1594. After 1600, he composed several moonlight landscapes, working on light effects. As he was in Prague, his landscape designs were reproduced in pietra dura to ornament pieces of furniture made at the court workshop, they were also engraved by
Several engravers like Hendrich Hondius and Aegidius Sadeler published series of Bohemian forest views. There were executed in the Prague area, after Stevens (and other artists designs) and played an important role in the development of 17th century Dutch and Flemish landscape paintings. Stevens is last mentioned in Prague in 1624.
This drawing is part of a series of numbered¬¬--at least fifty-three--drawn views around Brussels, Rome, Naples and Prague. Twenty-six of them are known, five of which are in the Institut Nérlandais in Paris. This group could have been intended to be engraved, perhaps by Aegidius Sadeler who published a similar series in 1606 after Jan Breughel the elder who also visited Prague in 1604. Breughel probably influenced Stevens in his drawing technique as Stevens evolved from pen and dark brown or black ink against deep blue washes to soft tones and increased use of the brush. Thus, the present work can be dated shortly after 1604.