Hubert Robert (French, 1733-1808)
The Old Temple
INV-5704
Hubert Robert (French, 1733-1808)1787/88
The Old Temple
Hubert Robert (French, 1733-1808) →Neoclassicism18th Centuryoil on canvasarchitecture
Date
1787/88
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
255 × 223.2 cm (100 3/8 × 87 7/8 in.); Framed: 265.5 × 233.4 cm (104 1/2 × 91 7/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Adolphus C. Bartlett
The four large canvases by Hubert Robert in the Art Institute's collection were commissioned by wealthy financier Jean-Joseph, Marquis de Laborde, to decorate a salon in his château at Méréville, France. Installed on all sides of the room, they would have suggested that the walls had dissolved, revealing fantasies of Classical architecture animated by scenes of everyday life. Robert was much sought after as a painter of architectural ruins, a genre that appealed to the late 18th-century taste for the antique. He cultivated his knowledge of antiquity over more than a decade of travel and study in Italy.
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