This is one of a set of six paintings from a room in the Château de Bagatelle, on the outskirts of Paris which belonged to the comte d'Artois, brother of Louis XVI. Robert often incorporated the antique ruins and monuments he had studied in Italy, in the present case the temple of Jupiter Serapis at Pozzuoli, near Naples. The statues of Mercury and Venus are based on works by the French sculptor Pigalle while the landscape is imaginary.

The woodland temple with a pool and fountains, visitors and bathers, is a splendid invention. When painting it, Robert seems to have referred to his own drawings for both the building and the sculpture. Possible sources of inspiration are the tempietto of Donato Bramante (1444–1514) at San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, the ancient temple at Tivoli, and what was then called the Temple of Serapis, at Pozzuoli, near Naples. The ruined structure, furnished with a statue based on an ancient model, is flanked by figures of Venus and Mercury after Jean Baptiste Pigalle (1714–1785). Pots and boxes of flowers suggest a private contemporary garden.

At the top of the steps is a visitor attired for the street in modern dress; at the bottom of the same stairs, a goddess-like, largely nude blond modeled on Boucher and more distantly on Watteau dons a chemise. Two unselfconscious brunettes play in shallow water, although in principle nude females would be admissible here only in the guise of statuary. One of their fashionable pink shoe lies at the edge of the pool. Since the picture was designed for the bathing room of a folly built on the whim of a prince whose joint aims were securing privacy and advertising luxury, this is perhaps not surprising. Visitors were sometimes admitted by ticket to Bagatelle, which was occupied infrequently and for the briefest of intervals by its owner.

[2011]

Charles Philippe, comte d'Artois, château de Bagatelle, near Paris (until 1789); at Bagatelle, nationalized by the Assemblée and incorporated into the commune of Neuilly by spring 1792 (1789–96); Claude Leuthereau, Bagatelle (1796–97); André Lhéritier and a consortium of investors, Bagatelle (1797); André Lhéritier and the Société des Entrepreneurs de Fêtes (1797–1806); at Bagatelle, which was purchased by Napoleon's Administration des Domaines in 1806; sale, Hôtel de Bullion, Paris, Clisorius and Masson jeune, April 4, 1808, no. 151, as "Six Tableaux sous ce numéro; ils représentent des monuments d'Italie et amusements champêtres. Ils ont étés peints pour le ci-devant comte d'Artois, à Bagatelle. Toile."; the lot was divided into two parts, the first went for Fr 381, the second for Fr 240, both to Brunot; ?[Jacques Nicolas Brunot, from 1808]; Pierre Justin Armand Verdier, comte de Flaux, château de Flaux, near Uzès (until d. 1883); Édouard Henri Roger Verdier, comte de Flaux, château de Flaux (1883–d. 1898); Clémence Pascal Verdier, comtesse douairière de Flaux, château de Flaux (1898–d. 1908); Flaux estate (under arbitration, 1908–10); Eliane Berger, Roger de Flaux's daughter (1910–11; offered for sale to MMA and J. Pierpont Morgan through Maurice de Verneuil); J. Pierpont Morgan, New York (1911–d. 1913; his estate, 1913–17; on loan to MMA from April 1912)

Paris. Thos. Agnew & Sons. "Exposition d'oeuvres d'Hubert Robert (1733–1808)," March 12–30, 1912, one of nos. 1–8 (as "Panneaux Décoratifs pour un salon, provenant de la collection de Madame de Flaux," lent by J. Pierpont Morgan).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Nudes in Landscapes: Four Centuries of a Tradition," May 18–August 5, 1973, no catalogue.

Springfield Art Museum. "Masterpiece of the Month," November 15, 1975–March 15, 1976, no catalogue.

M. [Luc-Vincent] Thiéry. Guide des amateurs et des étrangers voyageurs à Paris. Paris, 1787, vol. 1, pp. 28–29, describes the château de Bagatelle and states that the bathing room was ornamented with mirrors and with six charming pictures painted by M. Robert.

Friedrich Gilly. Description de Bagatelle. 1797 [published by Edgar Wedepohl in L'Oeil, no. 126, 1965, p. 22], describes the château and mentions the Robert paintings.

Annonces, affiches et avis divers 93 (April 2, 1808), p. 1478 [see Ref. Baillio 1995], preview the forthcoming sale of these works, "six tableaux de place, peints par Hubert Robert représentant des Monuments d'Italie".

Charles Yriarte. "Mémoires de Bagatelle, I." La revue de Paris (July 1, 1903), pp. 21, 33, states that Robert was paid 500 livres for each of the six; mentions that by 1784 the pictures, suffering from dampness, were restored by the artist for 500 livres; notes that none of them remain in the pavilion but adds that they appear in the 1797 inventory where they are described as partly damaged by humidity.

Henri-Gaston Duchesne. Le château de Bagatelle (1715–1908). Paris, 1909, pp. 142, 155, 160, quotes Yriarte, but also cites a document of May 18, 1784 in which only the small paintings to the right and left of the fireplace are mentioned as requiring restoration; notes that the six damaged paintings were left in situ when Bagatelle was leased to entrepreneurs in the year V [1796–97].

"Nouvelles." Chronique des arts et de la curiosité, supplément à la Gazette des beaux-arts no. 31 (October 7, 1911), p. 242, announces rediscovery of the six panels by M. Forestier, conservator of the Bois de Boulogne; notes that paintings are signed and bear dates of 1777 and 1784; states that they were brought to Malmaison and subsequently given by Empress Josephine to her physician; adds that he left them to his family, who brought them to the South of France.

D. F[riedley]. "Decorative Panels by Hubert Robert." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 7 (July 1912), pp. 130–31, announces J. Pierpont Morgan's loan of the paintings to the Museum.

Paris Letter [from unknown periodical]. 1917? [in typescript in MMA Archives, under Morgan, J. P., 1st, M. 8224, Loans - Paintings and Miniatures, Old Master Drawings: "Mystery of the Panels, Paris Letter," incorrectly as in American Art News, Dec. 29, 1917], note that there were originally eight compositions of this kind that the Empress Eugénie gave to her physician; that they were sold to Comte Flaux, and later entered the collection of De Verneuil, head of the Paris syndicate of official "agents de change"; wonder where the remaining two are since six were sold about ten years before to Morgan for "something like $200,000".

J.C.N. Forestier Librairie agricole de la maison rustique. Bagatelle et ses jardins. Paris, 1922?, pp. 43–44.

P[reston]. R[emington]. "Six Paintings by Hubert Robert." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 19 (January 1924), pp. 9–10, dates them 1777; suggests that the two restored works were the Cave (17.190.25) and the Swing (17.190.27); says all six were taken to Malmaison between 1806 and 1810 and were given by Josephine to her physician.

Jean Stern. A l'ombre de Sophie Arnould: Francois-Joseph Belanger. Paris, 1930, vol. 1, p. 70.

Georges Pascal. Histoire du château de Bagatelle. Paris, 1938, p. 34, notes that copies have replaced the Robert originals at Bagatelle.

Louis Hautecœur. "Seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle: Le style Louis XVI, 1750–1792." Histoire de l'architecture classique en France. 4, Paris, 1952, p. 493.

Ferdinand Boyer. "Jean-Joseph de Laborde protecteur de F.-X. Fabre et sa collection confisquée en 1794." Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de l'Art Français (1954), p. 221 n. 1.

Robert Joffet. Bagatelle: Histoire et guide. Paris, 1954, pp. 16, 27–28, states that Napoleon had the six panels taken from Bagatelle to Malmaison in 1810 and that Josephine gave them to her doctor who sold them to the comte de Flaux.

Charles Sterling. "XV–XVIII Centuries." The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of French Paintings. 1, Cambridge, Mass., 1955, pp. 163–64, 166–67, ill., accepts the tradition that the paintings were at Malmaison; notes that the round building was done from a drawing, now in Besançon, of the temple of Serapis at Pozzuoli; and adds that the statue at right is the Mercury by Pigalle.

Barbara Scott. "Bagatelle: Folie of the comte d'Artois." Apollo (June 1972), p. 481, ill.

Béatrice de Andia et al. De Bagatelle à Monceau, 1778-1978: Les folies au XVIIIe siècle à Paris. Exh. cat., Musée Carnavalet. Paris, 1978–79, p. 16, accepts the tradition that the six paintings were once at the Malmaison.

Gérard Hubert. Letter to Dean Walker. April 28, 1980, says there is no trace of the six panels having ever been in Josephine's collection; identifies her physician as Horeau; concludes that if the paintings belonged to her they were in her possession for only a short time.

Jean de Cayeux. "Jeux d'eau pour une salle de bains." L'objet d'art 8 (June 1988), pp. 62–65, 68, ill. (color, overall and detail), finds the MMA title misleading and suggests instead the title "Le temple de l'Amitié," observing that the sculpture of Mercury is a symbol of friendship; suggests that this painting and "Wandering Minstrels" were installed at Bagatelle shortly before or shortly after the 1779 Salon, and that the narrower panels were not completed until 1784.

Annie Jacques Jean-Pierre Mouilleseaux in La Folie d'Artois. Exh. cat., château de Bagatelle, Paris. n.p., [1988], pp. 42–43, fig. 24 (color).

Paul Bernard Wilson. "Profiles in Royalty: Hubert Robert's 'The Mouth of a Cave' and a Concealed Iconography of Louis XVI." Album Amicorum Kenneth C. Lindsay: Essays on Art and Literature. Binghamton, 1990, pp. 183–84.

Joseph Baillio. "Hubert Robert's Decorations for the Château de Bagatelle." Metropolitan Museum Journal 27 (1992), pp. 149, 156–57, 161, 164, 171–73, 176–78, 181 nn. 25–26, p. 182 nn. 51, 53–54, figs. 15, 17, 18, 20, 22 (overall and details), with the exception of "The Mouth of a Cave," dates the Bagatelle series 1777–79; observes that Robert took the figure of the woman seen from behind, with her knees protruding from the water, from Balechou's 1757 print (fig. 21) after Joseph Vernet's "Bathers," and that the female bather removing her stockings was taken from Boucher's "Le Fleuve Scamandre," which he knew from Nicolas de Larmessin's 1742 print of the composition (fig. 23).

Joseph Baillio. "Addendum to 'Hubert Robert's Decorations for the Château de Bagatelle'." Metropolitan Museum Journal 30 (1995), p. 103.

Paula Rae Radisich. Hubert Robert: Painted Spaces of the Enlightenment. Cambridge, 1998, pp. 78–79, 83, 85, 87–91, 94–96, 171–72 nn. 25, 29, p. 173 n. 35, p. 174 n. 42, p. 176 n. 56, fig. 45.

Katie Scott. "Book Reviews. Hubert Robert: Painted Spaces of the Enlightenment." Burlington Magazine 141 (November 1999), p. 690.

Jean Strouse. Morgan: American Financier. New York, 1999, p. 559, briefly mentions our Bagatelle paintings (17.190.25–30).

Jean Strouse. "J. Pierpont Morgan, Financier and Collector." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 57 (Winter 2000), pp. 26–28, ill. (color).

An anonymous copy of this painting, measuring 173 x 122 cm appeared in two recent New York auctions: Parke-Bernet, January 22, 1976, lot 199, and Sotheby's, May 30, 1979, lot 60. A painting by Robert exhibited at the Walpole Gallery, London, Treasures of Italian Art, 1988, no. 26, as "Capriccio – A Garden Landscape with the Temple of the Sibyl" (128 x 95 in.) is similar in composition and must also derive from the artist's drawing of the temple of Serapis.