Catalogue-2014-Jean-Luc-Baroni

Hubert Robert
Paris 1733-1808
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The Sack of an Ancient Pyramid
Oil on canvas. Oval. Unlined.
52.7 x 63.8 cms. (20 3 /4 x 25 1 /8 in.)
Provenance: Collection of a Spanish Noblewoman.
This unusual work from Robert’s later years represents an unrecorded example of the artist’s life-long
fascination with Egypt and the pyramids. During his first months in prison at Sainte-Pélagie when he
could not paint, Robert whiled away the time by rereading Claude-Étienne Savary’s Lettres sur l’ Égypte
(1788-89), celebrated at the time for its picturesque descriptions and brilliant style. He wrote a charming
letter to the daughter of a fellow captive - the minor poet Jean-Antoine Roucher (1745-1794) - who had
sent him the book, expressing his pleasure at being able to “visit” again that land where the ancient monuments
had defied the ravages of time and nature. He concluded by saying that, when he had finished
“his race round the pyramids”, he collapsed in her father’s cell where the talk turned to the loved ones
beyond the prison walls 2 .
Early in his career, Robert turned his back on a Rococo depiction of Egyptian motifs in Rome, like the
Pyramid of Caio Cestio, for a more visionary approach to this subject-matter that has been said to anticipate
Étienne-Louis Boulée’s 3 . This is best seen in the Egyptian Fantasy (signed and dated Rome, 1760)
in a private collection, where the artist united Fischer von Erlach’s images of cloud-wreathed immensity
with Piranesi’s bold foreshortening to produce what is one of his most singular works 4 . However, not all
of Robert’s depictions of pyramids, like, for example, that of 1779 at Arkhangelskoïe 5 , near Moscow, are
of the same intensity.
Interestingly, the present picture, however, may hide a more serious meaning under its seemingly
light-hearted and amusing subject, as can be seen by comparing it to a related drawing from the late 1790s,
horizontal in format, with the pyramid, one column and the fallen sarcophagus but with the scene of pillage
located in the Roman campagna (fig.1) 6 . More important than Robert’s changes to staffage (though
the figures are still dressed as Italian country people) and shape are those to place and atmosphere. There
are now two pyramids with the main
one sited in the middle distance to
increase its monumentality, the foreground
being littered with Robert’s
“débris imposants” of broken obelisks
and columns, while the leafly,
bucolic setting has disappeared to
be replaced by a vast, desert waste.
1. Hubert Robert, The Sack of an Anciant Pyramid, Private Collection.
It is well known that Robert often
responded to events after 1789 in
an oblique fashion, coding his characteristic
subject-matter with messages
about his own plight and that
of his friends. Emblematic of this is
the pair of paintings with birds imprisoned
and freed from their cages
which he gave to Madame de Tourzel
(1749-1832) who was gaoled
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