# The Obelisk

- By: Hubert Robert (French, 1733-1808)
- Date: 1787
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 255.6 × 223.5 cm (100 7/8 × 88 in.); Framed: 265.5 × 233.4 cm (104 1/2 × 91 7/8 in.)
- Culture: France
- Credit line: Gift of Clarence Buckingham
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/57049)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/3b8084b4-5fb4-700a-bc0a-16e6fa4698b8/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)

This painting is one of four depictions of architectural fantasies by Hubert Robert commissioned by the Marquis de Laborde for his elegant country estate at Méréville, south of Paris. It features a grandiose vaulted space that frames an obelisk, with a peristyle, or colonnade, closing off the distance. Through years of study in Italy, Robert absorbed the vocabulary of Classical architecture and sculpture into his own imaginative language. Here, the female figure in the central niche is based on a first-century sculpture that the artist would have seen during his stay in Rome.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0