Beschreibung:

ROBERT, HUBERT (1733-1808). Les Soirées de Rome... Suite de Dix Planches dessinées et gravées par Robert, Pensionaire du Roi de France à Rome . Paris: Basan frères, [ca. 1765]. Suite of 10 etched plates, numbered 1-10, including etched title and 9 views of Rome (title 180-115 mm., pl. 2-10 each ca. 166-115 mm), plates 2, 4 and 7 signed in the plate (H. Robert Roma).(Tiny repaired marginal tear to plate 1.) Tipped in along left margin to the pages of an album (217 x 161 mm.), half red morocco by Zaehnsdorf, spine gilt lettered, gilt edges. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION, third issue, early state before letters. A rare suite of etchings by one of the most prolific painters of landscapes and ruins of the eighteenth century. The son of an official in the service of the Marquis de Stainville, Robert benefited at an early age from the patronage of influential members of the aristocracy and cultural elite, who set him up in Rome at the age of 21. Three years later he was exceptionally accepted at the Académie in Rome without having studied at the Académie de Peinture et Sculpture in Paris. He remained in Rome until 1765, where he belonged to a circle of French and Italian artists and amateurs with antiquarian interests that included the Abbé de Saint-Non, Henri-Claude Watelet, Fragonard, and Gian Paolo Panini. The present suite, dedicated to the engraver Marguerite Le Comte was composed in memory of a voyage to Italy made by her in 1763 with her lover, the collector, writer and amateur engraver Watelet, and his former teacher the abbé Copette. A related commemorative volume of engravings by various members of the Académie in Rome, Nella venuta in Roma di Madama le Comte, e dei' Signori Watelet e Copette , published in 1765, contains two other etchings by Robert (Le Blanc 11 and 12). Cohen-de Ricci 896; Le Blanc, Manuel de l'amateur des estampes , II, p. 340, 1-10.