Museum Masterpieces: The Louvre

Lecture 10: Boucher, Fragonard, and the Rococo in France
Hubert Robert became one of the most popular and proli� c painters of ruins
in the history of art, working in Italy, France, and in czarist Russia, where he
painted numerous scenes of Italian antiquity. We see him here in a portrait
(Hubert Robert) by his friend, the great female artist Elisabeth Vigée-
Lebrun, whose husband was an art dealer in 18 th -century Paris. Robert’s own
Imaginary View of the Grande Galeries in Ruins appeared in the Salon of
1796. Here, one sees Robert applying the lessons he learned from the Roman
ruins of Italy to post-revolutionary contemporary France. All civilizations
will decline and die, and we must imagine their achievements in ruin in order
to understand them in life. �
Jean-Honoré Fragonard: Figure de Fantasie: Portrait of the Abbé de Saint-
Non or Inspiration, 1769, oil on canvas, 2'7" x 2'2".
———: The Bolt, c. 1778, oil on canvas, 2'5" x 3'1".
———: The Bathers, 1772–1775, oil on canvas, 2'1" x 2'7".
———: The High Priest Coresus Sacri� ces Himself to Save Callirhoe, c.
1765, oil on canvas, 10'2" x 13'1".
François Boucher: Le Dejeuner (The Luncheon), 1739, oil on canvas,
2'8" x 2'2".
———: Diana Leaving the Bath, 1742, oil on canvas, 1'10" x 2'5".
———: The Rape of Europa, 1747, oil on canvas, 5'3" x 6'4".
———: Venus Requesting Arms for Aeneas from Vulcan, 1732, oil on canvas,
8'3" x 5'9".
Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun: Hubert Robert, 1788, oil on panel, 3'5" x 2'9".
François Lemoyne: Hercules and Omphale, 1724, oil on canvas, 6' x 4'11".
Jean-Baptiste Greuze: The Punished Son, 1778, oil on canvas, 4'3" x 5'4".
Hubert Robert: Imaginary View of the Grande Galeries in Ruins, 1796, oil
on canvas, 3'9" x 4'9".
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Works Discussed