Trompe l’Oeil
Wilhelm Robart Dutch
Not on view
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.
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