View of the Sybil's Temple and the Temple of Drusilla with a Part of the River, at Tivoli, Italy

Skelton arrived in Italy in December 1756 and remained there, based in Rome, until his early death on 19 January 1759. From his correspondence with his patron William Herring of Croydon (see Ford, op.cit.) he is known to have been at Tivoli in April, June and September 1758, if not at other times as well. On 23 April he wrote that 'This antient City of Tivoli I planly see has been ye only school where our two most celebrated Landscape Painters Claude and Gasper studied. They have both taken their Manners of Painting from hence' (Ford, op.cit., p. 42).
This drawing may be that referred to in a letter from Skelton to William Herring of 20 November 1758: 'I have finished three large Drawings since I sent Dr Hays from hence. I wish one of these had been finished at the time I sent His; I fancy the subject would have pleased you. It is composed of a Wood with the Ruins of the Temples of the Sibils and Peace and a Rocky woody Mountain with a large Cascade: without any sky' (Ford, loc.cit.). Other, more open, views of Tivoli done in 1758 are in the Tate Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum, Fitzwilliam Museum and Birmingham City Art Gallery.