The Temple of Saturn

(Hubert Robert)

HUBERT ROBERT
(1733-1808)

Figures amongst Ruins inspired by the Temple of Saturn

Oil on canvas
156 x 99 cm (62 x 40 in.)
Signed lower right: H.ROBERTI, Roma
Dated at center: 1761

PROVENANCE:
Mme Rouillé de l’Étang and her son, M. Rouillé de l’Étang, Paris (after 1776);
M. Rouillé de l’Étang, Paris;
His niece, marquise de Pastoret (Adélaide-Louise Piscatory), Paris (until d. 1843);
Her son, Amédée-David, marquis de Pastoret, Paris (1843–d. 1857);
His daughter, marquise du Plessis-Bellière, Paris and château de Moreuil, Somme, France (1857–97; her estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 10–11, 1897, n° 77 (sold with a companion, lot 76, Les Lavandières);
F.B. Harrison, Esq. Scotland;
With Wildenstein & Co, New York;
Ethel Tod Humphrys, New York, her sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., 8-10 November 1956, lot 418 (sold with a companion, lot 417 Les Lavandières) ;
J.R Streep; her sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, 18 April 1962, lot 47A.

LITERATURE:
P. de Nolhac, Hubert Robert, 1738-1808, Paris 1910, p. 152.
Will be included in forthcoming catalogue raisonnée of Hubert Robert by Joseph Baillio and the Wildenstein Institute.

EXHIBITED:
New York, Wildenstein & Co, Paintings and Drawings by Hubert Robert, 19 March-9 June 1935, n°2 (lent by Ethel Tod Humphrys).

This lively capriccio of the Forum Romanum, dated 1761, was painted during Robert’s formative period in Italy between 1754 and 1765 and is contemporaneous with one of Robert’ most important early commissions, his Architectural capricco of the Pantheon and the Porto di Ripetta, painted for the duc du Choiseul, now in the Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna. Here, Robert set his scene just before sunset in the Forum, looking west-northwest towards the Capitoline Hill, but apparently omitting the remains of the Temple of Vespasian. Under a makeshift portico amidst the ruins the Temple of Saturn, laundry dries on a terrace, women, work or rest, two more gossip before an open fire further below. In the foreground, a trapper studies a seated statue of Juno, and standing upon the remains of a pediment, Robert’s ubiquitous red-cloaked man in turn studies the trapper. Robert unified the various elements, activities and distances of his scene, partially by the vegetation, such as the scrubby weeds and herbs which sprout amidst the crumbled stones and the line of cypresses on the distant hill that echo the Temple’s columns, but equally, and more subtly, through the creamy yellow light breaking through the scudding clouds. The republican Temple of Saturn (c. 5th century B.C.) was clearly a major source of inspiration for Robert; he painted a large number of variations throughout his career. The composition most similar to our painting is without doubt The ruined temple , in which the temple is seen from the same angle, along with the large terrace overlooked by poplars on the left, and a female statue on the high plinth, at left. Another painting in the Louvre, Colonnade of a ruined temple, depicts the temple and terrace in reverse.

While the painting shares the the same illustrious Rouillé de l’Étang-de Pastoret provenance as the painted overdoor in the Met (commissioned by Rouillé de l’Étang as part of a decorative ensemble for his hôtel on the rue Royale, built in 1776), our picture does not belong to this particular group, as evidenced by Robert’s own dating. Overall, the chronology of Robert’s undated capricci can be problematic. In the case of his compositions inspired by the Temple of Saturn, it can be quite complicated indeed, as Robert incorporated this particular structure in his work from 1760 and onwards throughout the 1780’s, long after he had returned to Paris. The closest composition to the present work is the ex Schuhmann picture, which is undated, but is referenced in older inventories as having been painted in Italy. The Louvre picture is actually part of a later series painted in 1783. Moreover, there are at least four red chalk studies of the temple, one in the Louvre, one in Valence and two others in Lyon, all of which (apart from the undated Louvre sheet) are dated 1762.

The fact that most, if not all, of Hubert Robert’s Roman vedute are actually capricci would have been obvious to audiences of the time, even those unfamiliar with Rome and its topography. Robert’s ‘Roma’ never existed. In fact, upon closer inspection, some of his ruins reveal a melange of architectural periods and elements so varied, and yet so coherent, that they suggest not much Vitruvius as Johannes Wincklemann playing with building blocks. Like so many of his fellow students at the Academy, Robert was heavily influenced by the work of Panini and Piranesi, indeed his peripathetic approach to the antique is possibly directly indebted to the latter artist, but it is Robert alone who appears to have recognised the anachronistic appeal of 18th century Roman daily life, how its industry and vitality contrasted with the decay of its past glories. In some respects, the unique charm of Robert’s capricci lay in his talent to imagine the sublime within the mundane. In this particular aspect, his Roman subjects differ from those of his contemporaries, such as the precise panoramas of Antonio Joli, or even the rapturous mise-en-scenes of his close friend Jean-Baptiste Fragonard. Instead, Robert manufactured his scenes from his own unique ability to balance his empirical appreciation of the ancient world with his more romantic approach to view painting. Moreover, Robert clearly understood that by forming his style in this manner, he could be particularly versatile as a painter, as it allowed him to alternately emphasise in his italianate scenes either a sense of the theatrical or purely decorative, or alternatively, the more cerebral, romantic allure of the antique.

Robert had arrived in Rome in 1754 as part of the entourage of the young comte de Choiseul, to whose father, the Marquis de Stainville, Robert’s own father served as valet de chambre. It was perhaps Robert’s excellent connections that initially won him a place at the Palazzo Mancini as a ‘paying boarder’, but it was his industry and unaffected intelligence that earned him the approval of the Academy director, Charles Natoire, who made him a proper boarder in 1759. Classically educated by the Jesuits, Robert already had a solid understanding of ancient buildings and monuments. Moreover, he also possesed the visual imagination to reconstitute them, from even partial evidence or descriptions. This, coupled with his keen, but sympathetic eye for the peasantry enabled Robert to strike a balance in his capricci between the grand and the bucolic and made Robert one of the most popular and successful decorative painters of the French 18th Century.

Mme Rouillé de l’Étang and her son, M. Rouillé de l’Étang, Paris (after 1776);
M. Rouillé de l’Étang, Paris;
His niece, marquise de Pastoret (Adélaide-Louise Piscatory), Paris (until d. 1843);
Her son, Amédée-David, marquis de Pastoret, Paris (1843–d. 1857);
His daughter, marquise du Plessis-Bellière, Paris and château de Moreuil, Somme, France (1857–97; her estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 10–11, 1897, n° 77 (sold with a companion, lot 76, Les Lavandières);
F.B. Harrison, Esq. Scotland;
With Wildenstein & Co, New York;
Ethel Tod Humphrys, New York, her sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., 8-10 November 1956, lot 418 (sold with a companion, lot 417 Les Lavandières) ;
J.R Streep; her sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, 18 April 1962, lot 47A.

P. de Nolhac, Hubert Robert, 1738-1808, Paris 1910, p. 152.
Will be included in forthcoming catalogue raisonnée of Hubert Robert by Joseph Baillio and the Wildenstein Institute.

New York, Wildenstein & Co, Paintings and Drawings by Hubert Robert, 19 March-9 June 1935, n°2 (lent by Ethel Tod Humphrys).