ID: 700007845 Page link: http://vocab.getty.edu/page/cona/700007845	Record Type: Movable Work
Images: 1

Demolition of the Château of Meudon (painting (visual work); Hubert Robert (French, 1733 - 1808) (French Artist); 1806; J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center (Los Angeles, Los A...; 2007.4)

Note: The Château and gardens of Meudon-located near Versailles, with a view of Paris and the Seine-comprise one of the great, lost ancien régime monuments. With its 1552 renovation, on the designs of Primaticcio, under Charles de Guise, cardinal of Lorraine, Meudon was transformed from a small medieval castle into a notable site. Louis Le Vau modernized the château in the 1650s for Abel Servien, finance minister to Louis XIV, and the façade was rebuilt in the 1680s for the marquis de Louvois, the minister of war, who also added the sumptuous gardens by André Le Nôtre. Meudon then passed to the Dauphin, whose interior renovations included spectacular Boulle furniture. Louis XV paid little attention to the château, so after the Dauphin's death in 1711, Meudon gradually became marginalized as an occasional hunting lodge and ultimately fell into desuetude. Ransacked during the Revolution, then appropriated by the Revolutionary government, Meudon was eventually wrecked by fire in 1795, and the consular government voted in 1803 to demolish the main structure entirely. Robert depicts Meudon's 1803 demolition, illuminated by a bright, sun-drenched sky. However, instead of documenting the actual state of the structure in that year, Robert concatenated his composition from still-extant elements as well as features that had already vanished, thereby bridging the genres of the capriccio and the veduta. People fill the canvas, all of them dwarfed by the massive ancien régime pile and engaged in diverse activities related to its demolition. At lower left, four workmen (including one who lazily looks on) directed by a well-dressed man in coat and top hat, move one of the columns (later to be used in the Arc du Triomphe du Carousel in Paris), while other laborers transport stones with wheelbarrows or by hand. Two women and a young girl behold the ruins at center, while other visitors have entered the structure and look out from the bays of the piano nobile (the roof of this part of the château had in fact by this point completely collapsed). Another young woman tends to a group of seven children, who playfully pull one of the workers' carts across the littered courtyard. At lower left, before the looming remains of Meudon's chapel (which had actually been completely destroyed in the 1795 fire) an artist with a receding hairline (probably Hubert Robert) sits with a large sheet of paper on his lap, gesturing with his red chalk holder at the scene below. A young family looks up at the artist, while a younger woman holding a portfolio also gestures at the artist's subject, and a boy lies in reverie further in the rear.

Titles:

Demolition of the Château of Meudon (preferred,C,U,RP,English-P,,)

Demolition of the Chateau of Meudon in 1806 (C,U,English,,)

Catalog Level: item

Work Types:

painting (visual work) [300033618] (preferred)

..... (Objects Facet, Visual and Verbal Communication (hierarchy name), Visual Works (hierarchy name), visual works (works), <visual works by material or technique>)

Classifications:

paintings (preferred)

Creation Date: 1806

Creator Display:

Hubert Robert (French, 1733 - 1808) (French Artist) [preferred,JPGM]

Robert, Hubert (French painter and draftsman, 1733-1808) [500009558]

Locations:

Current: J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center (Los Angeles, Los Angeles county, California, United States) [500329598] J. Paul Getty Museum, J. Paul Getty Trust, Corporate Bodies (Corp. Body)

Repository Numbers: 2007.4

Credit Line: Purchased in part with funds realized from the sale of paintings donated by Peter and Iselin Moller, Dr. Walter S. Udin, and Howard Young

Other: Creation: France [1000070] Europe (continent), World (facet) (Geographic)

Display Materials: Oil on canvas

	oil paint (paint) [300015050]
	.......(Materials Facet, Materials (hierarchy name), materials (substances), <materials by function>, coating (material), <coating by form>, paint (coating), <paint by composition or origin>)

	canvas (textile material) [300014078]
	.......(Materials Facet, Materials (hierarchy name), materials (substances), <materials by form>, <materials by physical form>, <fiber and fiber by product>, <fiber by product>, textile materials, <textile materials by process or technique>)

Dimensions: Unframed: 113.3 x 146 cm (44 5/8 x 57 1/2 in.); Framed: 143.2 x 175.9 x 9.5 cm (56 3/8 x 69 1/4 x 3 3/4 in.)

Cultures:

French (preferred)

Style/Period/Group/Movement:

	Rococo [300021155] (preferred,style)
	.....(Styles and Periods Facet, Styles and Periods (hierarchy name), <styles| periods| and cultures by region>, European, <Renaissance-Baroque styles and periods>)

	Neoclassical [300021477] (style)
	.....(Styles and Periods Facet, Styles and Periods (hierarchy name), <styles| periods| and cultures by region>, European, <modern European styles and movements>)

	Romantic (modern European styles) [300172863] (style)
	.....(Styles and Periods Facet, Styles and Periods (hierarchy name), <styles| periods| and cultures by region>, European, <modern European styles and movements>)

General Subject:

genre (preferred)

landscapes

Specific Subjects:

	laborers [300025888]
	.....(Agents Facet, People (hierarchy name), people (agents), <people by occupation>, workers, blue collar workers) (AAT)

	ruins [300008057]
	.....(Objects Facet, Built Environment (hierarchy name), Single Built Works (hierarchy name), single built works (built environment), <single built works by specific type>, <single built works by condition>) (AAT)

List/Hierarchical Position:

..... Movable Works

.......... Movable Works by class: drawings, paintings, prints, other two-dimensional media

Sources and Contributors:
Demolition of the Château of Meudon	........ [JPGM,VP]
	........ J. Paul Getty Museum database for collections (2000-)
Demolition of the Chateau of Meudon in 1806	........ [JPGM,VP]
	........ J. Paul Getty Museum database for collections (2000-)

Subject: ....... [JPGM,VP]

Note:
English	..... [JPGM]
	..... J. Paul Getty Museum database for collections (2000-)