Francesco Coleman (Italy, 1851–1918) was the son of the English painter Charles Coleman who had travelled to Rome to study in 1831 but later married and settled there. Like his father, Francesco painted the people and landscapes of the Campagna Romana - an excursion into the pastoral beauty of the Roman countryside was considered an essential part of the Grand Tour hence the popularity of such landscape mementos - but Francesco was also much influenced by the Orientalist Movement. The Lion’s Den shows a mounted Bedouin tribesman with his henchman alongside, looking down a rough cliff face to the desert lion below, the beast guarding the entrance to his cave den, unaware of the threat above.