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"PORTRAIT OF HUBERT ROBERT"
by
JEAN HONORE FRAGONARD
(1732 - 1806)

This brilliant, flashing, painting shows the subject in an informal posture - probably on a balcony with a wind blowing his hair and garments.

Hubert Robert appears to be in approximately his forty-fifth year, which would date this painting around 1778.  At this period Hubert Robert was awarded by the King's brevet, a lodgement at the Louvre next to Fragonard, and it is very likely that from one of the balconies there this portrait was made.

This date may also be arrived at by comparing the Painting with the Portrait of Hubert Robert by Mme. Vigee LeBrun that is in the Louvre, and which - according to her memoirs - was painted in 1788 and represents the subject certainly ten years older.

The friendship of Fragonard and Hubert Robert began when they were both students and together they studied at the Academy in Rome, where they painted landscapes and studied early Italian works that had such an influence on their artistic future.  After their return to France, they were still companions, and enjoyed each other's company up to the years of their death - Fragonard in 1806, and Hubert Robert in 1808.

This painting has never before been exhibited in this country ; it was included in the great Exhibition of French Art at the Royal Academy, London, in 1932, under #269, and prior to this was in the Collection of Rudinoff, the painter.