Hubert Robert

Probably Euphémie Pantin de Landemont, née Costa de Beauregard, spouse of Ambroise Pantin de Landemont, Mayor of Ancenis.

A painter of ruins, Hubert Robert presents here, in a reduced format that still allow monumentality, a condensed view of ancient Rome, through some of its most famous remains. Immediately recognizable, they are skilfully arranged by the artist in a capriccio that made him a specialist in France during the 18^th century.

Among the most prolific artists of his time, Hubert Robert occupies a special place in the pantheon of landscape painters. Firstly, because of his significance: he was one of the first painters in this genre to practise in the second half of the century. Secondly, for his genius, which induced him, before the Romantic generation, to become interested in ruins and places touched by history as well as spectacular natural sites, as in the case of the present paintings.

Born in 1733, Hubert Robert was originally destined to become a sculptor, initially training with Michel-Ange Slodtz (1705–1764), who taught him the rudiments of perspective. However, he switched fairly swiftly to a career as a painter. Supported by the Comte de Stainville (1719–1785) – the future Duc de Choiseul – he left France for Rome in 1754. The eleven years he spent there were decisive for the development of Robert’s art, as he discovered the ancient Roman monuments and deepened his knowledge, laying the foundations for what would become his mature work. He showed himself to be an eager draughtsman, keen to record everything around him, whether Roman ruins, idyllic landscapes or the works of Piranesi and Panini, which, upon his return to France, inspired him to create a pictorial idiom all his own.

Approved and then admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, he embarked on a long and profitable career, founded on his copious production of paintings, mostly capricci featuring Italian ruins that he remembered from his travels. He benefitted from the support of important members of the aristocracy as well as the haute bourgeoisie in the financial sector; after the Revolution and the loss of his French patrons, he continued to produce extensively for the imperial princes of Russia.

Although relatively small in size, these two capricci with Roman ruins by Hubert Robert convey a sense of monumentality as well as a subtle melancholy, recalling Diderot’s comments about the painter: he wrote that Robert evoked a poétique des ruines, prefiguring the Romanticism which was to come.

Giovanni Paolo Panini’s influence on Hubert Robert’s adoption of the genre of capricci featuring ruins is well documented and the two present works, which depict an imaginary landscape containing groups of ancient Roman monuments – some in reality a considerable distance from each other – do not deviate from the laws of the genre. 

Thus the Pantheon, easily recognizable on the left of the first work, is shown with Trajan’s column, both in Rome, but also with the Temple of Vesta, which can still be seen in Tivoli, some distance from the Eternal City. Similarly, in the second composition, the Temple of Minerva Medica, in the background, the Temple of Saturn and the Borghese Vase, visible on the left, are in reality far apart.

These two works are in a narrow format unusual for Robert, who normally produced compositions on a larger scale, destined to decorate the interiors belonging to his many patrons. Their size is more appropriate to the private study of a more unassuming art lover who wanted a condensed version of ancient Rome, perhaps after returning from the Grand Tour.

Although we do not know who commissioned the paintings – it may also be that Robert produced them on a speculative basis – tradition has it that they once belonged to one of the members of the French Costa de Beauregard family, originally from Liguria, probably Euphémie Pantin de Landemont, born Costa de Beauregard, wife of Ambroise Pantin de Landemont, mayor of Ancenis, from where it appears likely the paintings came.