1788
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
The Landing Place is a 1788 oil by Hubert Robert, a Rococo painting work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
Hubert Robert painted a grand fantasy scene in 1788. A huge stone colonnade looms over a busy harbor. Small boats ferry people to shore while others relax by the water. Robert mixed real Roman ruins with his own made-up details. The scene feels both real and dreamlike. Light plays on the columns and water in a way that tricks your eye. His style feels like a stage set. Look for the way he stacks arches and shadows. Compare it to Canaletto’s cleaner views of Venice. Hubert Robert
The Landing Place is one of four works commissioned to decorate a salon in the château of Jean-Joseph, Marquis de Laborde, a successful financier. This view is dominated by an immense colonnade, in front of which several people are shown departing in a pleasure boat while others linger at the water’s edge. As he constructed this fantasy, Hubert Robert included direct references to renowned antique monuments, combining them with elements of his own invention. The perspective and scale of Robert’s four painted architectural fantasies were coordinated with the proportions of the room to give the…
Commissioned with its pendants (1900.382, 1900.383, 1900.385) by Jean Joseph, marquis de Laborde (died 1794), in 1787 for the Château de Méréville (near Etampes); the château was sold by Mme de Laborde, 1819 [see Simone de Lassus, “Quelques Détails inédits sur Méréville,” Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire de l’art français, année 1976 (1978), p. 286 n. 1]; the château was owned successively by: M. Ters and Mme d’Espagnat (sold 1824); comte de Saint-Roman (sold 1866); duc de Sessa (sold 1868); M. and Mme Beleys (sold 1869); la Société Cail (sold 1874); M. Heddle (sold 1889); Adam Natanson…
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, June–November 1, 1934, no. 331. Art Institute of Chicago, Selected Works of Eighteenth-Century French Art in the Collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, January 28–April 25, 1976, no. 14d. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, "Hubert Robert," June 26 - October 2, 2016, cat. 74.
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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