Hubert Robert Paris 1733 - 1808

P. Cailleux, Paris;
Dr Lucien Graux, Paris;
Anonymous sale, Paris, Palais Galliera, 9 March 1961, lot 150;
With Newhouse Galleries, New York;
Acquired by the Helis family after 1961;
William G. Helis Jr., New Orleans, Louisiana;
His deceased sale, New York, Sotheby's, 11 January 1990, lot 141;
With Richard Green, London, from whom acquired by the present owner.

Paris, Galerie Jean Charpentier, Hubert Robert and Louis Moreau, 1922, no. 43;
Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie, Hubert Robert, 1933, no. 26.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a recent lining and stretcher, and has been recently restored. The paint is slightly indented into the canvas in the sky under the arch but the surface is otherwise well preserved throughout. There is one little old knock in the right of the sky with some fine circular craquelure, and another just below in the foliage growing on the top of the ruins. These have been carefully retouched, and there is no other accidental damage at all, but just some superficial strengthening of the shadows of the columns down the left side, with a few touches in the lower left corner, and minor little cosmetic touches around the silhouette of the central girl against the sky where there is a pentiment by her shoulder, and a few touches in the skirt of the girl in the foreground on the right carrying a basket of washing on her head. Only the shadows of the columns on the left are slightly thin, with a strip along the left of the base edge, and perhaps a little patch on the green bank above the fallen cornice on the right, but the painting is in beautiful condition overall. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This view of ancient, monumental ruins bathed in a warm light, peopled by a throng of peasants whiling away the afternoon, exists only as a result of Robert's trip to Rome from 1754 to 1765. Robert arrived in Rome among the entourage of the French Ambassador to the Holy See, the Comte de Stainville, and he continued to be supported from the highest levels during his sojourn, not least by the Marquis de Marigny, Mme. de Pompadour's brother, and the Duc de Choiseul, made French Foreign Minister in 1758, who was his protector. During his eleven years in Rome Robert produced countless architectural sketches in the Roman campagna and it was probably with reference to one such drawing that he conceived the elaborate temple that forms the backdrop to the peasant scene in this picture. Although Robert did paint true representations of certain ruins, like the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli, many of the ruins he depicts are inventions, only partly based on reality. The scene here is highly romanticised and would have appealed greatly to Robert's enormous following of wealthy clients both at home in Paris and abroad, notably in Russia.

This work will be included in The Wildenstein Institute's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the oil paintings of Hubert Robert