A study for the landscape background of The Flaying of Marsyas a fresco formerly in the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati, now in the National Gallery, London (NG6288). It shows the two distant trees on the extreme left of the composition, the trees and the tree trunk in the centre of the fresco, and the wooded hill and bridge on the extreme right.

The Villa Aldobrandini was rebuilt by Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini in the early seventeenth century. Aldobrandini commissioned Domenichino to produce a cycle of ten frescoes depicting scenes from the life of Apollo for a large pavilion in the grounds of the palace. Increasingly busy, Domenichino was assisted in the execution of the frescoes by Alessandro Fortuna, Giovanni Baglione and Giovanni Battista Viola, who is traditionally supposed to have painted the landscape backgrounds. For drawings related to the Flaying of Marsyas see JPH 111-116 ; for the complete cycle, see JPH 1097–1124; for the commission, see JPH 1097.