HUBERT ROBERT | The Shepherd

Pierre Decourcelle Collection;
His sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Lair-Dubreuil and Baudoin, 29-30 May 1911, lot 39;
Anonymous sale, Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Rheims-Lebel, 9 May 1952, lot 103 (repr. pl. 27).

S. Catala, « Les vies parallèles de Robert et de Fragonard », in cat. exh. Hubert Robert – 1733-1808 – Un peintre visionnaire, Paris, musée du Louvre 2016, p. 195 and note 21.

As Sarah Catala explains in her essay on Hubert Robert and Fragonard in the catalogue of the monographic exhibition devoted to the artist at the Louvre in 2016, this painting is probably the pendant of another pastoral scene, entitled The Return of the Flock (present whereabouts unknown). Both paintings have a close relationship with the work of Fragonard, but also, in the case of the present work, with Albert Cuyp, from whom Robert borrows almost directly the motif of the shepherd and his dog (after a painting in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, inv. no. 1107).

We are grateful to Sarah Catala who has confirmed the authentication of this painting.