Hubert Robert

In this drawing, the French artist Hubert Robert combines Roman antiquities such as classical column fragments and sculptural friezes with a pyramidal structure more commonly associated with the monuments of ancient Egypt.

Archaeological discoveries of Greek and Roman antiquities starting in the 1700s began providing artists with new subject matter, as well as new relationships with history. Rather than base their understanding of the past solely on ancient texts, artists took inspiration from objects of the past. Robert and others engaged in fantastical reorderings of history, juxtaposing forms and monuments from different time periods and cultures. 

–SM

This drawing is typical of Hubert Robert’s classical fantasies, which combine elements from various Roman buildings and ruins. In this scene, fragments of columns and relief sculpture in the foreground suggest a distinctly Italian setting. Likewise, the pyramid, despite the Egyptian statues at its door, resembles in its modest scale the Pyramid of Caius Cestius in Rome, a tribute not to a pharaoh, but to an ancient Roman military commander. The loose classical robes worn by the figures leave the time period unclear. Robert created many large-scale drawings like this, based on studies made in Italy between 1754 and 1765. His works inspired later artists to use Italian architecture and landscape as inspiration for expressing their own moods and fantasies.

Hubert Robert was a resident of the French Academy in Rome from 1754 to 1765. Young French artists who were awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome would study and live in the Academy’s building at the expense of the French government. Plaster copies of ancient statues, not only from Rome, but from all of Italy, were available on the premises as a convenient means for students to train in drawing. Robert’s fantasy of an enormous pyramid surrounded by Greek and Roman ruins was likely inspired by Piranesi’s imaginative architectural etchings with their dramatic scale and tonal effects.