.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This splendid and accomplished pair of architectural capricci is deeply indebted to the influence of Gian Paolo Panini (1691-1765). Hubert Robert kept these paintings in his personal collection until his death, and in the sale of the contents of his estate, held in Paris, 5 April 1809, they appeared as lot 85, where they were catalogued as 'Two Paintings, Studies after PANINI. In one, a Vase and a fragment of Entablature; in the other, a Pyramid.' Hubert Robert’s association with Panini dated to the very start of his eleven-year-long stay in Italy. The young artist arrived in Rome in November 1754, aged 21, travelling under the protection of the Comte de Stainville, future Duc de Choiseul, who had recently been appointed the Ambassador to the Holy See, later French Minister for Foreign Affairs; Robert’s father, Nicolas Robert, had been employed in Stainville’s household. These impeccable connections attained for Robert the privilege of residing at the Académie de France, despite his not having been awarded the Prix de Rome; in return for this concession, Stainville agreed to pay the cook’s wages. The Italian vedute painter Gian Paolo Panini was professor of perspective at the French Academy, and he befriended and mentored Hubert Robert, who was described on his arrival in Rome by the Director of the Academy, Charles Natoire, as having 'a taste for architecture'. This taste already defined one of most striking aspects of his art, which consists principally of architecture – often ruined, both real and invented – in landscape settings. In 1757, Stainville commissioned from Panini two of the artist’s masterpieces, An Imaginary Picture Gallery with Views of Ancient Rome and An Imaginary Picture Gallery with Views of Modern Rome (both in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York); Robert may have participated in their execution, and they reappear in 1809 in his estate. As Joseph Baillio has observed, it was from Panini that 'Robert learned to experiment with the structural and spatial complexities of monumental architecture, and in response to their imagery, he learned to integrate disparate structures into fantastical compositions.' The essential inspiration that Panini provided Robert was consistently noted by Robert’s contemporaries: Natoire wrote in 1759 that the young artist worked 'with infinite enthusiasm, he is in the same genre as Giovanni Paolo Panini,' while, decades later, Madame Vigée Le Brun reminisced in her memoirs that her good friend, 'Robert, a landscape painter, excelled above all at depicting ruins; his paintings in this genre can be compared to those of Giovanni Paolo Panini.'
Robert is known to have copied works by Panini, in drawings, watercolors and paintings, some of them after works in his own collection. The dealer Alexander Paillet noted in the catalogue of Robert’s estate sale that the artist owned at least 25 paintings by Panini, considering them 'the treasure of his education, and repeating daily that, after Nature, it was to them that he owed most of his success.' Indeed, the present Capriccio with an Urn is an almost exact copy of a known painting by Panini, the smaller-scaled Capriccio Architettonico con Figure in a private collection (79 x 72 cm.; formerly, Marco Grassi Collection, New York); its pendant, Capriccio with a Pyramid, finds no known prototype in Panini’s work, although its model may have been lost. Robert’s dependence on Panini was most pronounced at the start of his career and diminished as he evolved his own distinctive style – more spirited, spontaneous and loosely brushed than that of his Italian mentor, wittier and more imaginative – but Panini’s inspiration never disappeared entirely, and reemerged intermittently. The fluent and confident style of the present pair of paintings indicates great artistic maturity and conforms to Robert’s handling of paint in the mid-1770s, a full decade after his return to Paris.
These works will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Hubert Robert being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute.
Robert is known to have copied works by Panini, in drawings, watercolors and paintings, some of them after works in his own collection. The dealer Alexander Paillet noted in the catalogue of Robert’s estate sale that the artist owned at least 25 paintings by Panini, considering them 'the treasure of his education, and repeating daily that, after Nature, it was to them that he owed most of his success.' Indeed, the present Capriccio with an Urn is an almost exact copy of a known painting by Panini, the smaller-scaled Capriccio Architettonico con Figure in a private collection (79 x 72 cm.; formerly, Marco Grassi Collection, New York); its pendant, Capriccio with a Pyramid, finds no known prototype in Panini’s work, although its model may have been lost. Robert’s dependence on Panini was most pronounced at the start of his career and diminished as he evolved his own distinctive style – more spirited, spontaneous and loosely brushed than that of his Italian mentor, wittier and more imaginative – but Panini’s inspiration never disappeared entirely, and reemerged intermittently. The fluent and confident style of the present pair of paintings indicates great artistic maturity and conforms to Robert’s handling of paint in the mid-1770s, a full decade after his return to Paris.
These works will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Hubert Robert being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute.