Goethe wears a large wide-brimmed grey hat, fashionable among German artists in Rome at the time, and a creamy white traveler's duster.

He is portrayed in a classical manner, informally recumbent in the open air, surrounded by Roman ruins, with the Campagna di Roma in the background.

In contrast to the asymmetry of dominant Baroque and Rococo styles, Neoclassicism praised simplicity and symmetry and the classic principles of the arts of Rome and Ancient Greece.

[10] In 1887 the painting was donated to the Städel Museum by the private collector Adèle von Rothschild [de] (1843–1922), at a time when the Goethe cult was at its peak.

The new German Empire was looking for significant cultural icons that could form a collective past: Goethe and Schiller were elevated to national status.

It played an indisputable role in shaping the image of Goethe as he is perceived today, as embodying Germany's classical humanistic ideal.

During the journey, in Rome, he met several German artists, and stayed with Tischbein with whom he had become friendly through correspondence, fixing a scholarship for the painter, through his connections – a second Rome-stipend.

The Tischbeins were a family of renowned painters well known in Germany long before Goethe himself became famous, with Johann Heinrich Wilhelm a member of the fourth generation.