The Fountain

The Fountain

The Fountain
Artist:Hubert Robert (French, Paris 1733–1808 Paris)
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:68 1/4 x 31 3/8 in. (173.4 x 79.7 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917

From a set of six paintings made for the salle des bains of the comte d'Artois, Louis XVI's youngest brother, at the château de Bagatelle near Paris.
Catalogue Entry
In 1777, Charles Philippe, comte d’Artois (1757–1836), the youngest brother of Louis XVI who became Charles X of France, made a wager with Marie Antoinette. He bet that he could cause to be built a small château, or folie, to be called Bagatelle, while the court was absent from Versailles at Fontainebleau. His architect, François Joseph Belanger (1744–1818), reportedly brought eight hundred workers to the task. The comte d’Artois was the eventual winner, as the new Bagatelle was completed as required, between September 21 and November 26, 1777. Robert was commissioned to decorate the bathing room and Antoine Callet (1741–1823) was assigned the boudoir, on the opposite side. While Callet’s paintings have disappeared, Robert’s were given to The Met by financier J. Pierpont Morgan.
Robert’s paintings were apparently conceived as three pairs of varying widths. Of the six, Wandering Minstrels was exhibited at the Salon of 1779, while The Swing is signed, and The Mouth of a Cave is signed by the artist and dated 1784. Each of the three belongs to a different pair, and though the arrangement cannot be determined with certainty, it seems likely that the narrowest were on the fireplace wall while the widest flanked the window on the garden. In 1784, Robert was employed to repaint (refaire) the two canvases on the fireplace wall that had been damaged by dampness. It is possible but not certain that The Fountain, which is poorly preserved, was "redone" at the time, while The Mouth of a Cave, which is in good state, was supplied as a replacement, as Joseph Baillio suggested.
The pictures remained at Bagatelle until 1808, when they were sold at auction. It is unlikely that, as has been alleged, they belonged to the empress Josephine: there is no record of them at Malmaison and in any event she died in 1814. In 1911, it was announced that they had been rediscovered by the then curator of the Bois de Boulogne. For some time previously, they had been in the collection of the comtes de Flaux.
Robert’s many columns were inspired either by the column of Trajan or by that of Marcus Aurelius, each of which has a shaft with a spiral band of decoration. Here though the shaft is smooth. The column, backed by trees reminiscent of Roman pines, has been illogically placed near and at angles to an aqueduct, another feature of the landscape of the Italian capital. There are also innumerable fountains, but these are not set into the pedestals of triumphal columns: such fountains with their washerwomen were Robert’s inventions. The picture is a capriccio in which he adapted antique motifs from his repertoire to suit a required format. It is a pair to The Mouth of a Cave (17.190.25).

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