Hubert Robert · ART WIKI

Hubert Robert (22 May 1733 – 15 April 1808) was a French painter in the school of Romanticism, noted especially for his landscape paintings and capricci, or semi-fictitious picturesque depictions of ruins in Italy and of France.

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Chronicle

1733
Born · 22 May 1733
Paris

1745
Education · 1745–1751
Collège de Navarre

1751
Career · Paris
Training under the sculptor Slodtz
Robert trained in the workshop of the sculptor Michel-Ange Slodtz, who taught him drawing and perspective but advised him to turn to painting.
1754
Workplace · 1754–1765
Rome
Meeting · 1754–1765 · Rome
Roman circle: Panini, Piranesi, Fragonard
In Rome Robert studied perspective under the veduta master Giovanni Paolo Panini, met Piranesi, and became friends with Jean-Honoré Fragonard and the Abbé de Saint-Non; with Fragonard he drew from nature in Rome and its environs and stayed for long periods at the Villa d'Este in Tivoli.
Travel · 4 November 1754
Arrival in Rome
Under the patronage of the future Duc de Choiseul, appointed French ambassador in Rome, Robert set off for Italy and arrived in Rome on 4 November 1754, spending eleven years there.
1759
Career
Studies at the French Academy in Rome
From 1759 Robert studied at the French Academy in Rome at the Villa Medici, though he never won the prestigious Prix de Rome.

1760
Travel · April 1760
Journey to Naples and Paestum
The Abbé de Saint-Non took Robert and Fragonard to Naples to visit the famous sites of Campania — the excavations of Pompeii and the Doric temples of Paestum, which long continued to inspire Robert after his return to France.

1772
Workplace · 1772–1779
Paris
1778
Career · Paris
Keeper of the Royal Museum
When the decision was made to open a museum in the Louvre, Robert was appointed keeper of the Royal Museum, charged with preparing the masterpieces of the royal collection for exhibition. Until 1793 he lived in the Grande Galerie of the Louvre.

1780
Workplace · 1780–1784
Paris
1785
Career · 1785–1786
Theater at Versailles
Robert designed the decoration of a small court theater of about 500 seats in the new wing of the Palace of Versailles; construction began in the summer of 1785 and the theater opened in early 1786.

1793
The times · 29 October 1793 · Paris
Arrest during the Revolution
The revolutionary surveillance committee arrested Robert on suspicion of disloyalty and imprisoned him in Sainte-Pélagie; on 31 January 1794 he was transferred to Saint-Lazare. In prison he drew a great deal, painted scenes of prison life, and decorated plates for sale.
1794
Event · Paris
Release from prison
Robert was released a week after the fall of Robespierre. He narrowly escaped the guillotine: another prisoner with a similar name was executed in his place by mistake.
1795
Career · Paris
Return to his post as museum curator
Robert returned to his post as curator of the museum, the future Louvre, which he left only upon retiring in November 1802. He planned to unite the palaces of the Louvre and the Tuileries; his numerous views of the Louvre, real and imaginary, date from this period.
1796
Artwork

1800
Artwork · Paris
"Artium Aedes" — an imaginary Louvre
Robert depicted an imagined porch of the Petite Galerie of the Louvre palace with a portico, caryatids and the Latin inscription "Artium Aedes" ("House of the Arts"); the painting is in the Hermitage.
1802
Event · Saint Petersburg
Honorary free associate of the St. Petersburg Academy
Robert, whose paintings enjoyed success with Russian aristocrats and Catherine II, was elected an "Honorary Free Associate" of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.
1808
Died · 15 April 1808
Paris
Burial
Auteuil Cemetery

Palace Porch with a Portico and Caryatids1800