Hubert Robert 1733-1808 Rome Villa Sacchetti - Italy France Italian Grand Tour

HUBERT ROBERT 1733-1808
Villa Sacchetti
Drawing
At the age of twenty, the Paris-born painter Hubert Robert accompanied the French ambassador to Rome in 1754. Robert was offered a place there at the Académie de France, where the study of nature and drawing in the open air were particularly encouraged at the time. He was also taught by the vedutist Giovanni Paolo Pannini, who influenced him with regard to perspective and the incorporation of ruins and architectural elements. Robert created exquisite drawings with ruined set pieces that had survived the passage of time and were overgrown by nature. Here he has committed a modified version of the Villa Sacchetti in Rome to paper, which had been left to dilapidate just a few decades after its completion in 1630.
Ancient or decaying buildings were romanticized and enchanted not only the artists but also the public.