Landscape with Ruins

Hubert Robert, along with Fragonard whose work is shown to the left, was one of many eighteenth-century French artists who lived and worked in Rome. Robert was deeply influenced both by the city's architectural heritage and by contemporary Italian artists such as Giovanni Paolo Panini (whose painting Roman Ruins with the Arch of Titus is exhibited downstairs). Robert even became known as "Robert of the Ruins" because of the prevalence of these structures in his paintings and drawings. This is an imaginary view, a composite of several different known Roman ruins. The two Corinthian columns are very similar to those of the Temple of Castor and Pollux in the Roman Forum, and the bucranium (ox skull) with garlands is a typical Roman motif relating to animal sacrifice. The sarcophagus shown here resembles that of Queen Helena, Emperor Constantine's mother, now in the Vatican Museums.