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San Paolo fuori le Mura after the Fire of 1823, B92
  • Production Date

    1825
  • Type of Work / Object

    Painting

Explanation

  • The fire in S. Paolo fuori le Mura on the night of 16 July 1823 was particularly fierce and shocked the entire population of Rome, as the church was believed to have been built over the grave of the Apostle Paul himself. Like so many others, Léopold visited the site of the fire and the impressions from this resulted in a painting portraying the smoking interior of the ruined church. Perhaps in order to illustrate people’s sense at time that the fire was a sign of God’s impotence – or anger – Robert has used a viewpoint that has displaced the centrally positioned altar and not least the medallion of Christ away from the centre of the picture. The vanishing point is in the northern aisle on the left of the painting, as a result of which there is an emphasis on the monks and their hazardous attempts to save something from the fire in the foreground. Thorvaldsen, who had commissioned a painting from Léopold Robert, saw in the painter’s studio a picture of the interior of the basilica with the fallen roof and immediately commissioned a replica, which, however, was made by Léopold’s younger brother, Aurèle. He arrived in Rome in 1822 and there trained as a painter partly by copying his elder brother’s paintings. The copy was done under Léopold’s supervision and was also finally approved by him, and so it must be considered a work by Léopold Robert, who in fact has personally signed the painting. Léopold Robert trained in Paris under neo-classical artists including the most important of them, J.-L. David, and he moved to Rome in 1818, living there until 1832. He died by his own hand only three years later as the result of an unhappy love affair.

Motif / Theme