Giovanni Battista Viola, a pupil of Annibale Carracci, was a specialist in landscape painting and frequent collaborator of Domenichino; he arrived in Rome circa 1602. Together with Domenichino, he was the first of Carracci's pupils to model his early landscapes on those of his master and achieved considerable acclaim in his own right with his paesi. As early as 1603 Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini owned two of his works, by the mid-century Cardinal Mazarin had three, and by the end of the century four or five are recorded in the collection of Louis XIV at Versailles (F. Engerand, Inventaire des Tableaux du Roy rédigé en 1709 et 1710 par Nicolas Bailly, 1899, pp. 145-6, no. 19, and pp. 202-4, nos. 1-4).

In his article in the Burlington Magazine, Richard Spear (op. cit.) describes the present painting as being essential to our understanding of the stylistic attributes of this artist. Though his works have often been credited to Domenichino, they are typified by stiff figures in fashionable clothing and restricted natural movement.