A prestigious painter, Hubert Robert (1733-1808)

Discover the story of one of the prestigious painters featured at the château de Maisons ! Can you find the country that inspired the artist ?

"Paysage avec cascade inspiré de Tivoli" ("Landscape with waterfall inspired by Tivoli") is one of the largest painting by Hubert Robert, a major 18th-century artist. He spent a dozen years in Italy, visiting Tivoli and Vesuvius in 1774, accompanied by the Chevalier Volaire (1729-1799), a specialist in volcano paintings. Volaire painted "The Eruption of Vesuvius" for the Château de Nègrepelisse.
Back in Paris, Italian landscapes remained a source of inspiration for Hubert Robert, whose works were described by Diderot as the "poetics of ruins". In 1779, he painted this monumental composition based on nature.

Peinture de Hubert Robert (1733-1808), paysage avec cascade inspiré de Tivoli — Paysage avec cascade inspiré de Tivoli par Hubert Robert (1733-1808)
Hubert Robert, peintre (1733-1808) ©Patrick Cadet - Centre des monuments nationaux

In the foreground, three people give a human scale to this grandiose painting. Could the man with the drawing board under his arm be the painter himself, as his signature on the board seems to indicate ?
A wink at history: today, the paintings by the Chevalier Volaire and Hubert Robert face each other in the Salon des Captifs, a reception room in the 18th and 19th centuries !