Hubert Robert
Washerwomen and a seated child with a dog, by a grand staircase through a classical arch
Estimate
12,000 - 18,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Hubert Robert
(Paris 1733 - 1808)
Washerwomen and a seated child with a dog, by a grand staircase through a classical arch
Pen and brown ink, watercolour and grey wash over traces of black chalk; within a drawn circle (the four corners slightly cut);
signed in brown ink on the base of the pillar lower right: Robert
406 by 411 mm
Though the circular format is somewhat unusual for a drawing by Hubert Robert on so large a scale, the compositional type that we see here is definitely not. Imaginary scenes with grand staircases rising through ruined classical buildings and arches recur regularly in the artist's work, both in paintings such as the monumental 1787 canvas, The Obelisk, in Chicago1, or the rather earlier The Burning of Rome, in Le Havre2, and in drawings such as the Architectural Capriccio with the sculpture of Laocoön, in the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard.3
1.The Art Insitute of Chicago, inv. 1900.383; M. Morgan Grasselli and Y. Jackall, Hubert Robert, exh. cat., Paris, Louvre, and Washington, National Gallery of Art, 2016, cat. 77
2.Le Havre, Musée d'Art Moderne André Malraux, inv. 226; Ibid., cat. 87
3.Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, inv. 1978.35; Ibid., cat. 95
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