Trompe l’Oeil
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Documents fan out upon a green granite tabletop, transfixing the eye with their material veracity and replicating a collector’s habit of viewing prints strewn across a table. Here, Robart’s medley of images is displayed flat to redouble the table/tableau (picture) conceit. A dated sheet from the Dutch East India Company bears a list of cargo on its merchant ships; it partially obscures a musical score for the Nunc Dimittis (Song of Simeon). Together with a map of Europe and a booklet with a view of Dordrecht, the imagery traverses time and place, the sacred and the profane. The two landscapes in ink wash are Robart’s “own” handiwork: note the footprints in the snow in the scene at lower left and track the tiny figure who travels across the picture, from winter to spring.
Artwork Details
- Title: Trompe l’Oeil
- Artist: Wilhelm Robart (Dutch, active 18th century)
- Date: 1770s
- Medium: Ink, ink wash, watercolor, and chalk on paper
- Dimensions: 15 3/8 × 14 3/16 in. (39.1 × 36 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Barnet Fain (2001.93.2)
- Rights and Reproduction: Courtesy of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art