View of the Piazza della Bocca della Verit, the church of S. Maria in Cosmedin in the distance

One of a series of nine drawings of similar size depicting views of Roman ruins, eight of which are in the Louvre, F. Lugt, Inventaire gnral des dessins des coles du nord, Ecole Flamande, Paris, 1949, I, nos. 356-63. The attribution of the group is confirmed by Paul Bril's inscription on the verso of one of the Louvre drawings: 'dit is een van de beste desenne die Ick van matijs broeder nae het leeven hebe' (This one of the best drawing after life that I have of my brother Mattheus). These drawings were kept together by Matthijs' younger brother Paul after his death in 1583 and probably given to various of his pupils to copy. Of the eight drawings at the Louvre seven are also known through replicas by artists such as Jan Brueghel and others working in Rome with Paul Bril. Matthijs Bril himself executed replicas of his drawings, one of which is at the Louvre, F. Lugt, op. cit., no. 360.
Another exact version of the present drawing is in the Albertina, Vienna, O. Benesch, Die Zeichnungen der Niederlandish Schulen des XV. und XVI., Jahrhunderts, Vienna, 1928, no. 290. pl. 76. Luuk Pijl, in the exhibition catalogue to Fiamminghi a Roma (Bruxelles, Palais des Beaux-Arts and elsewhere, 1995, p. 92, note 1) described the Albertina drawing as a 'copy after after a lost original by Matthijs Bril'. The Albertina catalogue does not mention any black chalk underdrawing, strongly indicated on this sheet on the two most prominent structures.
Another drawing from this series is in the Fondation Custodia, Paris, C. van Hasselt, in Dessins des anciens Pays-Bas, collection Frits Lugt, exhib. cat., Florence and Paris, 1980, no. 30, pl. 103.