Landscape with a Fallen Tree

Hubert Robert

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hubert Robert forged a successful career depicting landscapes, architecture and antiquities. He made etchings only during a brief period in his youth in Rome, encouraged by friendships with local collectors, some of whom were amateur printmakers themselves. This image is inspired by a painting by Italian baroque artist Salvator Rosa, then in the collection of Robert’s patron, Jacques-Laure le Tonnelier, the Bailli de Breteuil (1722-1785), ambassador of the Order of Malta to the Holy See.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art