HUBERT ROBERT
84 Landscape with Ruins
Pen and brown ink, brown and blue wash, and black
chalk; H: 57. 2 cm (22^ in.); W: 78.3 cm (soI3/i6 in.)
83.00.3 7
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: At bottom right corner,
signed H. Robert ijj2 in ink; on mount, inscribed Hubert
Robert in black ink.
PROVENANCE: ComteJacques deBryas, Paris (sale, Ga-
lerie Georges Petit, Paris, April 4-6, 1898, lot 149); De
Jonge collection, Paris; Mitchell Samuels collection,
New York; Spencer A. Samuels, New York.
EXHIBITIONS : French and English Art Treasures Exhibition,
New York, December 1942. The Intimate Notion, Spen-
cer A. Samuels and Company, Ltd., New York, Octo-
ber-November 1967, no. 36. Fragonard and His Friends,
Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida, Novem-
ber 1982-February 1983, no. 53 (catalogue by M. L.
Gray son).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: None.
THIS UNUSUALLY LARGE WATERCOLOR REFLECTS THE
artist's continuing interest in Roman themes after his
return to Paris in 1765. Characteristic of his capricci, it
shows peasants with their animals, happily at work and
in repose or, in one instance, fishing beside the remains
of a Roman temple. It has been suggested by Grayson
(1982-1983, no. 53) that the ruin was based upon the
temple of Antoninus and Faustina in the Campo Vac-
cino, Rome, which Robert knew through both personal
experience and a popular Piranesi print. Grayson also has
noted that the large, complex tree at the left reappears in
a drawing of 1774 by Robert in the Musee des Beaux-
Arts et d'Histoire Naturelle, Valence (inv. D.60).* This is
perhaps the most accomplished detail of the watercolor,
and has a curiously Oriental flavor. It serves as a com-
positional and poetic foil to the Roman temple on the
other side of the river in this typical mixture of the clas-
sical and contemporary pastoral.i. M. Beau, La collection des dessins d'Hubert Robert au Musee de
Valence (Lyons, 1968), no. 7.188 FRENCH SCHOOL • ROBERT