1763
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Les Soirées de Rome: L'Escalier aux quatre bornes is a 1763 by Hubert Robert, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
This painting shows a grand staircase in Rome lit by warm evening light. Four carved posts mark its corners. A few people walk up, dressed in 18th-century clothes. Robert made this from his own drawings. He turned real places into imaginary scenes. The shadows feel soft, like late afternoon glow. See this piece in person at The Cleveland Museum of Art.
Derived from his own pen-and-ink drawings, this suite of etchings features fictional characters situated near recognizable buildings and statues in Rome. On the title page, Robert dedicated the suite to Marguerite Le Compte, who visited Rome in 1764 in the company of the wealthy author and art enthusiast Claude Henri Watelet. Both Le Compte and Watelet were amateur etchers, and they socialized with a group that included artists and printmakers centered at the academies in Italy. Robert’s dedication was likely motivated by the hope of future patronage from Le Compte. She may be the generous…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Hubert Robert (French pronunciation: ; 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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