Oeuvres sur Papier - Works on Paper - Jean-Luc Baroni & Marty de Cambiaire - 2022

Hubert Robert
Paris 1733 – 1808
24
Lavandières autour d’un puits et des ruines d’un amphithéâtre
Sanguine, plume, pinceau et encre brune, lavis gris et rehauts de blanc <strong>sur</strong> papier vergé. Filigrane à fleur
de lys dans un double cercle.
357 x 481 mm (14 ½ x 18 15 /16 in.)
Inédite, cette grande sanguine témoigne de l’importance
que Hubert Robert accorde au travail de
variation pour progresser. Réputé pour son œuvre
abondant, Robert dessine et peint tout au long de sa
carrière, en particulier des vues de ruines peuplées
de lavandières qui ont immédiatement as<strong>sur</strong>é son
succès. En Italie, où il séjourne de 1754 à 1765, l’artiste
produit <strong>sur</strong>tout des sanguines illustrant les sites
de Rome, du Latium et de la Campanie. Ces vues
sont exécutées dans le cadre de sa formation à l’Académie
de France à Rome et destinées à étoffer les
portefeuilles de quelques collectionneurs français,
tel Mariette, l’abbé de Saint-Non et le bailli de Breteuil.
Robert en garde le souvenir en prenant soin
d’en tirer les contre-épreuves et rapporte à son retour
en France, en 1765, des dizaines de compositions
<strong>sur</strong> lesquelles il s’appuie pour réaliser des variations
peintes et dessinées. Ce travail d’autocitation permet
d’augmenter la productivité de Robert, mais il est
1. H. Robert, Arcature du Colisée, sanguine,
392 x 274 mm, Besançon, musée des
Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie, Inv. D. 2987.
This hitherto unpublished large red chalk drawing
shows how important the creation of variations was
to Hubert Robert’s progress. Known for being prolific,
Robert made drawings and paintings throughout
his career, especially views of ruins populated by
washerwomen, a theme that brought him immediate
success. In Italy, where he lived from 1754 to
1765, Robert mainly produced red chalk drawings
illustrating sites in Rome, Latium and Campania.
These views were created in the context of his training
at the French Academy in Rome and were intended
to enrich the portfolios of a few French collectors
such as Mariette, the Abbé de Saint-Non and Bailli
de Breteuil. Robert preserved reversed images of
these works by taking care to make counterproofs
and brought back dozens of compositions with him
to France in 1765. He used these to create variations
in painting and drawing. Such output enabled the
artist to significantly increase his productivity, but
also proved an exercise in self-criticism that has
been the subject of little commentary 1 . Rare and
misunderstood until the discovery of this drawing,
the red chalk sheets corrected by Robert over several
years were also used to make variants. They now
form a corpus that is essential to our understanding
of this prolific artist’s working methods.
In Rome, where he lived in the Palazzo Mancini, seat
of the French Academy – thanks to the patronage
of the future Duc de Choiseul – Robert worked
ardently, drawing capricci with pen and ink in the
manner of the capriccio painter Giovanni Paolo
Panini. Three years later, around 1758, Robert began
to make drawings in red chalk and this remained his
favourite technique for the rest of his career. Amongst
others, he worked in the company of Jean-Honoré
Fragonard, at the time a pensionnaire at the French
Academy in Rome 2 . Two red chalk drawings that the
two men made together in the ruins of the Coliseum 3
are a reminder of their activity. The Besançon sheet 4
(Fig. 1) shows Robert’s confident, rapid handling of
light and his construction of the composition using
architectural elements to define various planes along
crossing diagonals. This same process, that brings
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