The park of an Italian villa, with figures

Typical of the red chalk drawings by Hubert Robert made during his trip to Italy between 1754 and 1765, this view of a park, with the walls of an Italian villa in the background, dates from circa 1764. A sketch in black chalk from the same year may have inspired Hubert Robert for the composition of the present sheet, in which the motif of the tower and the high fencing walls appear again (inv. vol. 453, no. 177; Bibliothèque municipale de Besançon; Catala, op. cit, 2013-2014, no. 81, ill.). A counterproof of this drawing is in the Bibliothèque municipale de Valence (inv. vol. 452, no. 13; Catala, ibid., no. 97, ill.).
Hubert Robert favored red chalk for many drawings made for sale, as gifts - notably to his patrons and in particular the Abbé de Saint-Non, with whom he travelled to Naples and Sicily - or for exchange with the other residents of the Académie de France in Rome (Catala, ibid., p. 19).