She landed at the port of Brundisium in southern Italy where she was met with huge crowds of sympathizers; a praetorian escort was provided by the emperor in light of her rank as the wife of a governor-general.

Historian Lindsay Powell says she was regarded by the Roman people as, quoting Tacitus, "the glory of the country, the sole surviving offspring of Augustus, the solitary example of the good old times.

[8] West's painting depicts the events from the beginning of Tacitus' third book as read to him by his client, the Archbishop of York, Dr. Robert Drummond.

Agrippina's likeness is derived from classical friezes found on the Ara Pacis Augustae and other various funeral steles.

[9] West meticulously arranges the buildings in the painting's background to recall those of Robert Adam's Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian, at Spalato, in Dalmatia, publicized only a few years prior with funding by the Society of Dilettanti.

This occurs during a propaganda war in the royal court between members with influence over the king's mother, Princess Augusta, to which the work owes its sudden popularity.

[11] The historical precision of Agrippina impressed King George III enough he commissioned West for a painting himself (The Departure of Regulus from Rome).