Paul von Franken (1818–1884), a German painter and author of the painting View of Tiflis, was called in earnest a Caucasian artist. He often visited the Caucasus and devoted a lot of his works to the rich culture and nature of this region.

In 1851, Franken married the talented portrait artist Helene Köber, a native of Mitau (as the Latvian city of Jelgava was called in the 19th century), and two years later the couple settled in Tiflis. Helene got a job as a teacher in one of the local gymnasiums and painted portraits of the Tiflis elite, and Franken, at the invitation of the Russian government, travelled to the Caucasus and created landscapes.

In the painting View of Tiflis, the artist depicted a panorama of the sun-drenched old southern city. He sought to convey the look of Tiflis of the 1850s. In the foreground is the courtyard of a two-floor house, on the roof of which women dance and play a tambourine. With the help of this remarkable everyday scene, the artist wanted to convey the artistry and openness of the Georgian people.

The action takes place against a majestic panorama of the ancient city, which Franken depicts in all its glory. Around the mountain towers the centuries-old wall of the Narikala Fortress, the ruins of which can still be seen in Tbilisi. Below are buildings, traditional for the Old Town, with many churches. Above the cliff — the Metekhi church and castle, destroyed in the middle of the 20th century, and on the other side, closer to the viewer, is depicted the historical district of the city of Abanotubani — a complex of sulphur baths of the 17th–19th centuries.

Franken had a romantic vision, which could not but affect the nature of the work. He was attracted by Oriental stories and legends, as well as by the colour of Tiflis side streets, where the distant past entered into a dialogue with the present.