Live Auction 7812Belgravia and Lake Geneva - Two European Collections
Christie’s roundel
Lot 62

Hubert Robert (Paris 1733-1808)

Capriccio of classical sculptures with a group listening to an orator

Closed14 May 2009

Price Realised

GBP 32,450

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Hubert Robert (Paris 1733-1808)
Capriccio of classical sculptures with a group listening to an orator
signed 'HUBERTI/ROBERTI.' (in the cartouche on the altar, lower left)
black chalk, pen and black ink, watercolour
19¾ x 16½ in. (52 x 41.3 cm.)

L'Hotel George V, Paris, 29 May 1969, lot 72.
with Galerie Cailleux, Paris (their stamp, not in Lugt).

Specialist note

The present watercolour, like the previous lot, was executed late in the artist's career and presents a picturesque capriccio of sculptures which Robert had studied during his period in Rome. From left to right the statues include a moumental marble krater, perhaps that at the Campo Santo in Pisa (P. Bober & R. Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists & Antique Sculpture, London, 1986, no.91); a monumental foot, perhaps intended to be that of Constantine in the Capitoline Museum, Rome; and one of the two Dioscori, inscribed 'OPUS/PRAXITELIS'.