This commission, probably conveyed by Richard Dalton in 1765 either in Rome or England (Dance returned in that year), was George III's first venture into 'high-minded' patronage. This taste for improving Classical compositions resulted in the acquisition of a group of paintings by Benjamin West from 1769 onwards.

Dance's work was exhibited at the Society of Artists in London in 1767, where it must have struck as a modern essay in the new Neo-Classical taste. In a Roman context Dance would not have been such a pioneer as he had examples of Classical scenes by Pompeo Batoni, Anton Raphael Mengs and Gavin Hamilton to follow.

This is also an early example of an illustration of Shakespeare's work, though it is not especially Shakespearian. Timon is a rich and generous man who loses his money and his faith in humanity when encountering the venal ingratitude of his fellow Athenians. In this episode (Act IV, scene 3) the now famous cynic, living rough, is visited by the golden youth and distinguished general, Alcibiades, in the company of two beautiful courtesans. Timon has just dug up some money by rather improbable good fortune and throws it contemptuously at the young women, bidding them all be damned. Here and throughout the play Timon's bitter railing makes Lear seem easy-going. Dance does not seem to wish to match Shakespeare's depiction of corruption and disillusionment, choosing rather to extract this single episode and ennoble it.

He does this by the use of Classical sources: a young and glamorous hero (Alcibiades) making a pilgrimage to visit a hermit (Timon) is a retelling of the popular subject of Alexander and Diogenes. Dance points his moral by having so many visual rhymes between the young, smooth-browed, spear-carrying, well-dressed, standing figure and the old, frowning, spade-bearing, broken, seated figure in rags. Alcibiades clearly reflects upon the moral of youth and age and the contrast between pride and heroic renunciation - for Timon seems simultaneously to reject wealth, glory and the pleasures of the flesh.