Hubert Robert

This charming, picturesque scene with figures meandering up the steps towards a majestic villa, executed in an oval format, is a fine example of Hubert Robert’s red chalk technique, and also demonstrates the artist’s genius in blending grandeur with quotidian informality.

Sarah Catala, who has seen the drawing in the original, has kindly informed us that the house depicted here is loosely based on and inspired by the residence of the writer and botanist, Jacques Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737-1814) in Essonnes, near Paris (now Corbeil-Essonnes) and suggests a date of execution after 1792. The house is described and illustrated in Alexandre de Laborde’s 1808 Description des nouveaux jardins de la France et des ses anciens châteaux.¹  Robert has, however, taken a certain amount of license with the building's architecture and situation, incorporating a church-like gothic window, and placing the house at the top of a grand staircase.

Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was best known for his 1788 novel Paul et Virginie. His country dwelling, designed by the architect Claude Nicolas Ledoux, was situated close to the paper factory owned by the publisher, Pierre François Didot, at Essonnes. The writer and botanist married Didot’s daughter in 1793. An oil painting by Hubert Robert of A view of the back of Bernardin de Saint Pierre’s house was sold in these Rooms in 2016.²

We are most grateful to Sarah Catala for her help when cataloguing this lot.

1. Alexandre de Laborde, Description des nouveaux jardins de la France et des ses anciens châteaux, Paris 1808, p. 187, pl. 119

2. Sale, New York, Sotheby’s, 26 May 2016, lot 86