Sculpteur travaillant à la statue d’un saint à Saint-Pierre de Rome

A sculptor finishes a saint’s statue in the nave of Saint Peter’s, a scene from the first years of Hubert Robert’s stay in Rome, when the young French painter sketched whatever caught his eye in the Eternal City. Described as early as 1770 as showing a sculptor completing one of the statues of Saint Peter’s, the picture was long called Houdon carving Saint Bruno; the museum now returns to the first identification, and the sculptor may be Michel-Ange Slodtz, who made a Saint Bruno for the basilica. Its rapid “fa presto” handling and white light make it an emblem of Robert’s Roman studies. The painting is held in the Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris.