Exhibition labels & didactics - National Gallery of Victoria
Exhibition labels & didactics - National Gallery of Victoria
Exhibition labels & didactics - National Gallery of Victoria
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34<br />
Hubert ROBERT<br />
French 1733–1808<br />
Feeding the prisoners in Saint-Lazare<br />
Prison<br />
Le Ravitaillement des prisonniers<br />
à la prison de Saint-Lazare<br />
c. 1794<br />
oil on canvas<br />
Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris, France<br />
Gift <strong>of</strong> the Friends <strong>of</strong> the Musée Carnavalet, 1934 inv. P. 1580<br />
Hubert Robert completed at least sixty<br />
drawings and paintings while imprisoned,<br />
many <strong>of</strong> which he sold. He sometimes<br />
recreated landscape compositions from<br />
memory, and at other times portrayed<br />
prison life. Here the prison servants are<br />
versions <strong>of</strong> the laundresses that Robert<br />
in happier decades loved to place on the<br />
steps <strong>of</strong> grand ruins. The fantasy element<br />
is underscored by the upper flight <strong>of</strong> stairs<br />
leading to a blind wall. This painting was<br />
commissioned by a fellow inmate,<br />
Etienne-Denis Pasquier, who later became<br />
chancellor <strong>of</strong> France.<br />
© COPYRIGHT<br />
This document remains the property <strong>of</strong> the <strong>National</strong> <strong>Gallery</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Victoria</strong> and must be returned upon request. Reproduction in part or in whole is prohibited without written authorisation.
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