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SINGLE
PAGE PRINT BLANK ON THE BACK .
Excellent Condition.
Image is clean, clear, sharp with beautiful detail. As scanned.
This beautiful print would look great matted and framed. Or an art supply
store can provide you with a selection of frames for old art treasures.
ABOUT THE ARTIST: HUBERT ROBERT - Paris 1733 - 1808 -
Robert's father, Nicolas Robert, served as ecuyer (an upper servant)
to the well-connected Marquis of Choiseul-Stainville, an association
that proved useful throughout his son’s life. Hubert Robert was
given a classical education by the Jesuits at the prestigious Collège
de Navarre (1745-1751), the most important Paris school after the Sorbonne.
That he was an able classical scholar, proud of his knowledge of ancient
history and literature is reflected in the attention he gave to Latin
inscriptions and archaeological details in his art. He first studied
with the sculptor Michel-Ange Slotz, with whom he learned perspective
and drawing which gave him a useful grounding but nonetheless evidently
persuaded him to direct his talents to painting. In 1754, he traveled
to Rome in the entourage of the newly appointed ambassador from France
to Rome, his patron’s son and heir the Count of Stainville, later
Duke of Choiseul and first Minister of France. Robert spent eleven years
in Rome, an unusually long period for a young man without any official
post at the French Academy, meeting prominent collectors and artists,
including Piranesi and Panini, both of whom profoundly influenced him.
Although he was not a pensionnaire at the Academy (not needing the financial
support this brought) and had never competed for, much less won, a Prix
de Rome, he was given special permission to join the students at the
French Academy. There he met the young Fragonard and was introduced
to the distinguished amateur, the Abbé de Saint-Non, who commissioned
from the two artists’ drawings that he planned to use in his publications
of views of Italian cities, antiquities, and works of art. Saint-Non
took Robert to Naples in April 1760 for a visit that exposed him to
the excavations at Pompeii and provided him with further sources for
his capriccii. Robert remained in Rome until 1765, returning to Paris
where his career met with early success. The following year, with unusual
speed, he was both agrée and reçu by the Académie
Royale. His paintings and drawings proved him to be not only a literal
observer, but also a poetic interpreter of landscape and views of Rome,
Paris, and the countryside of the Île-de-France. He painted fantasies,
such as the Grand Galerie of the Louvre in ruins; but he was on the
scene to make sketches (and ultimately, paintings) of the Hôtel
Dieu in flames (1772), and the demolition of the Pont Nôtre-Dame.
He was a frequent exhibitor at the Salons, and enjoyed the patronage
of leading collectors and members of the aristocracy. In the 1780s,
he was appointed designer and draftsman of the King's gardens. At Méréville
he designed gardens for the Marquis de Laborde and at Ermenonville,
for the Marquis de Girardin. His series of views of the garden of Madame
Geoffrin (now in a Paris private collection) were among the best of
his work done for prominent private patrons.
ABOUT THE PRINT: AQUARELLE
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