The Old Temple

A colossal ruin of classical antiquity — columns, entablature and a vaulted interior open to the sky — rises over tiny figures going about everyday life at its base, the fantasy of a vanished Rome animated by modern bustle. Hubert Robert painted this in 1787/88 as one of four large canvases commissioned by the financier Jean-Joseph, Marquis de Laborde, to line a salon of his château at Méréville; installed on all four walls, the set suggested the room’s walls had dissolved into imagined monuments. Robert, the most sought-after painter of architectural ruins of his generation, drew on more than a decade of study in Italy for the vision. The canvas was given to the Art Institute by Adolphus C. Bartlett. The painting is held in the Art Institute of Chicago.