Marstrand (1810-1873) was a student of Eckersberg. Apart from pictures with scenes of life Eckersberg also painted many different groups of subjects, but for Marstrand the portrayal of scenes of life became the main subject. In 1836, a grant from the Foundation ad usus publicos made a journey through Europe to Italy and Rome possible. October festival evening outside the walls of Rome became the main work of his first Italian journey. You immediately understand why Thorvaldsen bought the painting for his collection. There is, however, also a greeting for the old sculptor hidden in the composite composition: to the left, where darkness has fallen two secondary characters, a man and a woman, carry each their sleeping child home from the party and a pair of owls can be seen on the background of Rome’s city walls. This is Marstrand’s way of hinting at Thorvaldsen’s relief Night with its floating woman with the two sleeping children and the owl. And to the right in the painting a woman turns towards a torch, as also is the case in Thorvaldsen’s relief Day. With the long festoon of dancers twisting from the tavern in the right side of the painting to the walls of Rome in the left side, Marstrand joins the opposites: night and day, darkness and light, city and country.