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Lot Essay
The round format was often used by Hubert Robert in works produced during his stay in Italy (1754-1765); most often we find it employed for red chalk drawings, but several paintings are also executed on canvases of this format.
Apart from its format, the particularity of this drawing probably lies in the presence of sailing ships on the shore in the background. Usually, Robert depicts the Roman countryside, a pretext for drawing a few architectural elements populated with characters as, for example, in another round sheet representing A warrior and two women conversing by a ruin, dated 1767, of which there is a counterproof, both in the Musée des beaux-arts et d’archéologie in Besançon (inv. vol. 453, no. 25 and no. 176; S. Catala, Les Hubert Robert de Besançon, exhib. cat., Besançon, Musée des beaux-arts et d’archéologie, 2013, nos. 118 and 119, ill.).
Given the presence of different tones of red chalk and traces of stumping, it is very possible that this drawing was also counter-proofed. For Hubert Robert, this was a way of creating a ‘second original’ in the opposite direction: either intended for the art market, or used by the artist as a working tool, a repertoire of forms and a starting point for new variations on a theme.
Apart from its format, the particularity of this drawing probably lies in the presence of sailing ships on the shore in the background. Usually, Robert depicts the Roman countryside, a pretext for drawing a few architectural elements populated with characters as, for example, in another round sheet representing A warrior and two women conversing by a ruin, dated 1767, of which there is a counterproof, both in the Musée des beaux-arts et d’archéologie in Besançon (inv. vol. 453, no. 25 and no. 176; S. Catala, Les Hubert Robert de Besançon, exhib. cat., Besançon, Musée des beaux-arts et d’archéologie, 2013, nos. 118 and 119, ill.).
Given the presence of different tones of red chalk and traces of stumping, it is very possible that this drawing was also counter-proofed. For Hubert Robert, this was a way of creating a ‘second original’ in the opposite direction: either intended for the art market, or used by the artist as a working tool, a repertoire of forms and a starting point for new variations on a theme.