A rural landscape: two women with a dog carry baskets of vegetables across a ford towards Roman ruins, and have an exchange with a cowherd. Engraving by S. à Bolswert after Sir P.P. Rubens.

The painting is described by Adler as follows (left and right have to be reversed for the engraving): "A tall tree on the left with leafy lateral branches starting from low on the trunk acts as an effective repoussoir. Its top, which inclines towards the centre of the picture is cut off by the upper edge of the picture. It grows on a bank, and its roots can be seen protruding from the latter's silhouette facing towards the background. Behind the tree, which is in shadow, a broad stream of light flows over the ground, which is level on that side, illuminating a hilly, rocky, southern-type landscape which rises abruptly in the centre and on the right. Veils of cloud drift obliquely over the scene as if driven by the light. Massive Roman ruins are picked out by the light at the foot of a compact rocky ridge that rises out of the smooth, well-watered landscape. At the extreme left periphery of the hill is a tall ruined building overgrown with bushes at the top, which resembles the Temple of Venus and Roma in the Forum Romanum in Rome. On to it, and into its semi-cylindrical interior with a conch-like coffered vault, fall the dark shadows of three huge Corinthian columns, the remains of a vanished temple, still bearing part of the architrave with the frieze and a widely projecting cornice. The frieze, in relief, depicts a bullock and several human figures, some in lively animation: possibly a sacrifice is in progress. On the hillside further forward, two lofty entrances to Roman vaulted buildings face the spectator. Inside the left-hand vault a later piece of masonry and a blazing fire can be seen. In the other archway is a loving couple in 17th century dress, the man wearing a broadbrimmed hat. To the left of the two archways a heavy flight of stone steps, not very wide and becoming narrower as it goes up, ascends towards a bower-like construction of more recent date, where several people are seated together under a trellis of vines. Two of them have walked away from the group to the parapet, over which they lean with folded arms, looking at the view or talking. Trees and bushes grow in profusion on top of the ruins and on the first plateau of the hill. Further back, on this level space, a villa-like building can be seen. Behind it the hill rises further; trees also grow on the topmost ridge, and become almost as dense as a forest on the right-hand edge of the picture, Light from the left illuminates every feature of the ridge: it produces long stretches of light and shadow on the high meadows, causing rocks, buildings and treetops to shine brightly and cast strong shadows to the right. The ridge protruding from the right and the light streaming in from the left work powerfully against each other; the cloud-veils and the branches of the tree stretching out to the right enhance the effect of nature in a state of exaltation, displaying the monuments of a great past made all the more solemn and majestic by their ruined condition. Groups of cattle can be seen on the level ground surrounding the hill and the ruins on its flanks. Some of the animals are standing in great shallow pools between meadows and the boulders on the edge of the hill. In the foreground a broad stream flows to the right under the eye of the spectator, for whom a high vantage-point is assumed. Two young women, holding up their skirts, wade across the stream obliquely to the right, away from the spectator and towards the hill. The first of them has a flat basket on her head with a pumpkin and other vegetables or fruit, and is steadying it with her left hand. She turns round towards her companion, who holds a similar basket with two pumpkins against her hip with her right arm. The second woman looks back at a shepherd on the left, who is standing in shallow water surrounded by three cattle and is driving one of them off with a stick."--Adler, loc. cit.