Professor Ferdinando Arisi, in a letter dated 20 December 1992, confirms the attribution of both pictures to Panini, and considers them 'probabilmente del 1736'. Several other views by Panini of the Campo Vaccino, all with substantial differences to the present painting, are listed by Arisi (Gian Paolo Panini e i fasti della Roma del '700, Rome, 1986). Many of the elements of this picture are repeated by Panini in what Arisi considers to be the artist's last work (ibid., p.479, no.506). The mausoleum in the capriccio features in two other works by the artist (ibid., p.268, nos.93 and 94). Two engravings by J. S. Muller (published by F. Boydell in London in 1775 and 1776) after pictures by Panini in the collection of George Lewis Coke, are identical in composition to the present pictures except in their inclusion of the Obelisk of Augustus in the capriccio, and differences in the figures on the right in the view of the Campo Vaccino. The paintings after which the engravings were made are not otherwise recorded.

Both Sir Robert Hildyard, 3rd Bt., and his son, Sir Robert D'Arcy Hildyard, 4th Bt., went on the Grand Tour, the former sitting to Rosalba Carriera in 1736 (see Country Life, 27 Dec. 1979, p.2456, fig.6) and the latter to Pompeo Batoni in 1766 (A. Clark, Pompeo Batoni, ed. E. P. Bowron, Oxford, 1985, pp.304-5, no.301, and pl.276)