HUBERT ROBERT (Paris 1733-1808)

'La cascade': a rocky hillside with a peasant woman and child near a waterfall and boys resting by a blasted tree

Details

HUBERT ROBERT (Paris 1733-1808)
'La cascade': a rocky hillside with a peasant woman and child near a waterfall and boys resting by a blasted tree
oil on canvas
36 x 57¼ in. (91.5 x 145.5 cm.)

Provenance

Dr. G.H. N[eumans or Neher]; sale, Lair-Dubreuil, Paris, 29 May 1908, lot 45 (sold 6,200 francs).
with Wildenstein, Paris.
Baron Chatelperon, Paris.
Mme. W.H.R.B., Geneva, 1954.
with Galerie Cailleux, Paris, 1957.
Anon. Sale, Christie's, London, 10 December 1993, lot 59.

Literature

P. de Nolhac, Hubert Robert, Paris, 1910, p. 161.
J. Cailleux, 'Robert a pris son modèle sur Boucher', Connaissance des Arts, October 1959, p. 105.
A. Ananoff, François Boucher, Lausanne and Paris, 1976, II, p. 314, fig. 1792 (detail).
V. Carlson, exhibition catalogue, Hubert Robert, Drawings and Watercolors, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 19 November 1978-21 January 1979, p. 106.

Exhibited

Geneva, Musée Rath, Trésors des Collections Romandes, 26 June-3 October 1954, no. 49.
Paris, Galerie Cailleux, Hubert Robert-Louis Moreau, 26 November-20 December 1957, no. 12, where dated to c. 1770-75.
Paris, Galerie Cailleux, Hommage à Hubert Robert, 1967, no. 7.

Lot Essay

The figure of the girl was evidently inspired by the similar figure in François Boucher's La Route du Marché of 1770 (Ananoff, op. cit., no. 690, illustrated; sold, Christie's, Rome, 26 November 1986, lot 60); it was adapted by Robert for several paintings and a drawing now at Valence (Carlson, loc. cit., illustrated; J. de Cayeux, Les Hubert Robert de la Collection Veyrenc au Musée de Valence, 1985, pp. 274-275, illustrated and illustrated in color p. 64). For another instance of Robert borrowing figures from Boucher, see the catalogue of the exhibition, François Boucher, New York-Detroit-Paris, 1986-1987, p. 119.

A smaller picture of a related composition in reverse, La Petite Cascade, was in the Professor Thomas Bodkin sale, Sotheby's, London, 11 November 1959, lot 63, illustrated.

Mr. Joseph Baillio will include this picture in his forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the paintings of Hubert Robert, being prepared with the assistance of the Wildenstein Institute.

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