# The Old Temple

- By: Hubert Robert (French, 1733-1808)
- Date: 1787/88
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 255 × 223.2 cm (100 3/8 × 87 7/8 in.); Framed: 265.5 × 233.4 cm (104 1/2 × 91 7/8 in.)
- Culture: France
- Credit line: Gift of Adolphus C. Bartlett
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/57048)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/00fdacbb-872a-1091-3272-39967374ec07/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Kids profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

The four large canvases by Hubert Robert in the Art Institute's collection were commissioned by wealthy financier Jean-Joseph, Marquis de Laborde, to decorate a salon in his château at Méréville, France. Installed on all sides of the room, they would have suggested that the walls had dissolved, revealing fantasies of Classical architecture animated by scenes of everyday life. Robert was much sought after as a painter of architectural ruins, a genre that appealed to the late 18th-century taste for the antique. He cultivated his knowledge of antiquity over more than a decade of travel and study in Italy.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0