Draughtsman, printmaker and painter Lovro Janša (1749–1812) enrolled at the Vienna academy in 1766, together with his brothers Anton and Valentin. On the initiative of Professor Franz Edmund Weirotter, Lovro completely dedicated himself to landscape painting. He married in the metropolis in 1786, in 1795 he took over the position of the corrector at the Academy, and in 1811 he became Academy professor. 

The imaginary landscape with ruins is painted with soft strokes in darker green-brown tones. The scene includes all components of landscape painting typical of the time around the year 1800, such as trees, hilly environs with rocks, castle ruins on the left in the background, river rapids, and staffage figures by the path to the right of the river. The latter could be a three-member family, or a woman with a basket under the right arm who stopped to talk to two men resting.

In his oil paintings, carefully observing nature, Janša followed old examples taken from 17th century Dutch landscapes with elements of French Rococo.  In her doctoral thesis, Landscape in the Oeuvre of Lovro Janša (1749–1812). The Artist’s Works, Their Reception, and Context, Nataša Ivanović writes that the painter in his oil paintings followed the established old examples of his professors, while in his prints and drawings of around 1800 he invented artistic innovations in the visualisation of cityscapes.