Hubert Robert
(France 1733–1808)
- Title
- An extensive landscape near Paris
- Year
- 1781
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on oak panel
- Dimensions
-
61.5 x 72.5 x 1.2cm panel; 76.7 x 88.5 x 4.5cm frame
- Signature & date
- Signed and dated l.r., oil "H. Robert/ 1781".
- Credit
- Gift of James Fairfax AO 1995
- Accession number
- 177.1995
- Location
- 15th–19th c European art
- Further information
Hubert Robert is one of the quiet voices of French painting. In his youth he worked and studied with Fragonard, a louder talent by comparison, as both artists mastered the subtleties of a shared rococo style. In 1761 they travelled together to southern Italy, the wellspring of Robert's essentially classicising project. Italian view-painters such as Panini and Piranesi authorised his attraction to ancient sites and antiquarian subjects, alerting him to the enduring possibilities of the fragmentary tradition. Even in his native France, Robert's landscapes are unmistakably classical in tenor. The Roman Campagna insinuates itself into this otherwise descriptive scene of the countryside near Paris. Though it lacks anything so imposing as architectural ruins or sculptural wreckage, one senses a powerful note of nostalgia in the work. Even so, few views by Robert are as uncomplicated or as fresh as this, the airiness of the scene prefiguring nineteenth-century innovations in French landscape painting. The artist shown at work on the left is conceivably Robert himself.
AGNSW Handbook, 1999.
- Provenance (3)
-
James Oswald Fairfax AC (Australia, b.1933), 25 Oct 1988-22 Jun 1995, Bowral/New South Wales/Australia, Gift of James Fairfax 1995. Purchased by James Fairfax from Colnaghi, New York, 25 October 1988.
Colnaghi U.S.A. (United States of America), 16 Dec 1987-25 Oct 1988, New York/New York/United States of America, Sold to James Fairfax, 25 October 1988. Purchased by Colnaghi at Hotel Drouot, 16 December 1987, lot no. 61
Private Collection, pre 16 Dec 1987, France, sold Hotel Drouot, 16 December 1987, lot no. 61
- Bibliography (6)
-
Richard Beresford (England; Australia) (Author), Peter Raissis (Australia) (Author), The James Fairfax collection of old master paintings, drawings and prints, Domain, 2003, 152 (colour illus.), 153-4, 155 (colour illus.). cat.no. 44, illustration on page 155 is a detail
Bruce James (Australia) (Author), Edmund Capon (England; Australia, b.1940) (Director), Art Gallery of New South Wales handbook, Domain, 1999, 32 (colour illus.).
'Chronique des Arts' suppliment, Gazette des Beaux-Arts Mar 1996, Mar 1996, 42 (illus.). no. 166
Art Gallery of New South Wales Annual Report 1995 1995, 1995, 56.
Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874) (Author), The James Fairfax collection of old masters, Domain, 1992. no catalogue numbers
Alan Wintermute (Editor), Claude to Corot: the development of landscape painting in France, New York, 1990, cover (colour illus.), 215-7, 216 (colour illus.). cat.no. 45
- Exhibition history (3)
-
Claude to Corot: the development of landscape painting in France, Colnaghi U.S.A., 01 Nov 1990–15 Dec 1990.
The James Fairfax collection of old masters, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 25 Apr 1992–14 Jun 1992.
The James Fairfax collection of old master paintings, drawings and prints, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 17 Apr 2003–20 Jul 2003.
