The painting replicates, in a smaller and simplified format, the painting Rovine architettoniche con pitocchi e soldati, painted by Clemente Spera and Alessandro Magnasco around 1709-10, today in the Lechi Collection in Brescia (see L. Muti and D. De Sarno Prignano, Magnasco, Faenza 1994).
Literature: L. Muti e D. De Sarno Prignano, Magnasco, Faenza 1994, pp. 205 e 426, cat. 34, fig. 218