The Demolition of the Houses on the Pont au Change
Hubert Robert, 1788
For now, just to look at
The photograph we have of this work is not sharp enough to print at the quality we want, so we are not selling it for now. We are looking for a better one.
About the work
- Artist
- Hubert Robert
- Date
- 1788
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 86,5 x 159,5 cm (enmarcado: 98,7 x 171,5 x 5,5 cm)
- Collection
- Musée du Louvre, Department of Paintings, Paris
- Reference
- XDV-2207
What the museum label doesn't tell you
Look at those mounds of white stone: they read like the remains of some ancient civilization, almost a quarry dig. But this isn't excavating the past, it's demolishing the present. It's 1787-88 and workers are tearing down the houses on the Pont au Change under the old regime. Months earlier, petitions had already asked to save the monument to Louis XIV crowning the bridge. No one listened; its bronzes wouldn't reach the Louvre for another thirty years. Robert, 'the painter of ruins,' turns the news into instant antiquity. Can a city's disappearance be documented this way?
