Live Auction 7822Cabinet d'un Amateur Européen
Christie’s roundel
Lot 398

Hubert Robert (Paris 1733-1808)

La fileuse: Capriccio with the Pyramid of Cestius, a statue of Hercules, Roman altars, sarcophagi and amphorae, a woman spinning and a child

Closed9 December 2009

Estimate

GBP 12,000–18,000

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Hubert Robert (Paris 1733-1808)
La fileuse: Capriccio with the Pyramid of Cestius, a statue of Hercules, Roman altars, sarcophagi and amphorae, a woman spinning and a child
signed, located and dated 'DESSINE A STE PELAGIE PAR H ROBER... L'AN DEUSIE. DE LA REPUBLIC' (on the slab, lower right)
black chalk, pen and brown ink, watercolour, on a feigned mount with a gold framing line
14 5/8 x 9 5/8 in. (37.1 x 24.5 cm.) (drawing); 18 x 12¾ in. (45.7 x 32.3 cm.) (sheet)

Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 2 July 1991, lot 337, where acquired by the present owner.

Specialist note

Hubert Robert executed this capriccio of ruins and statues while being held at the Parisian jail of Sainte-Pélagie. He had been arrested on the charge of having failed to renew his civilian's card, but it is more likely that he was imprisoned on political grounds. Sainte-Pélagie was the first prison at which he was held, from his arrest on 29 October 1793, until his transferral to the prison of Saint-Lazare on 30 January 1794. Other drawings executed at this date include a study of two prisoners at Sainte-Pélagie playing cards (V. Carlson, Hubert Robert, Drawings and Watercolours, Washington, 1978, no. 58). Robert was eventually released in July 1794, after the fall of Robespierre.