The Ponte Salario
Hubert Robert·c. 1775
Historical Context
Robert's The Ponte Salario (c. 1775) at the National Gallery of Art depicts the ancient Roman bridge on the Via Salaria northeast of Rome — one of the many ancient structures Robert studied and transformed in his ruined architectural paintings. The Ponte Salario, damaged and rebuilt multiple times across its history, was a standard subject for vedute painters and Grand Tour artists visiting Rome. Robert's version transforms the topographic record into a meditation on the persistence of ancient engineering, the bridge's massive stone piers still spanning the Anio River despite the evident damage of centuries. The figures crossing the bridge give human scale to the ancient structure while suggesting the continuity of use across millennia.
Technical Analysis
Robert renders the bridge's massive stone arches with architectural precision while surrounding them with lush, atmospheric landscape. The warm palette of golden stone against green foliage and blue sky is characteristic of his Roman views, with small figures providing scale and animating the otherwise monumental composition.
Provenance
Jean Frédéric Perregaux [1744-1808], Paris and Viry-Châtillon;[1] by inheritance to his daughter, the maréchale duchesse de Raguse [1779-1855, née Anne Marie Hortense Perregaux], Paris and Viry-Châtillon;[2] (her estate sale, Hôtel des Commissaires-Priseurs, Paris, 14-15 December 1857, no. 42); Madame Louis Stern, Paris, by 1911; (sale, Galerie George Petit, Paris, 22 April 1929, no. 19); (Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York); sold 23 December 1946 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1952 to NGA. [1] According to the preface of the catalogue of his daughter's estate sale in 1857, the late 18th century French school paintings in the sale had been acquired by Perregaux from the artists themselves. A Swiss-born banker who had married a French woman and was the first regent of the Banque de France, the collector owned major works by Boilly, Greuze, Vernet, and Vigée Le Brun, among others. The NGA painting was included in the postmortem inventory of Perregaux's collection, drawn up on 25 February 1808 by the _commissaire-priseur_ Jean Baptiste Théodore Sensier; it was one of several decorating the salon of Perregaux's townhouse at 9, rue du Mont Blanc and was valued at 120 francs: "Item, un autre [paysage] par Robert représentant un pont cadre de bois doré Prisé cent vingt frances, ci.....120" (Archives nationales de France, Paris: Étude X, liasse 882). [2] She was the widow of one of Napoleon's marshals, Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont (1774-1852). Her father left her a considerable fortune, part ownership of his bank, and part of his art collection. The 17th century Dutch paintings in the collection were bequeathed to her brother, Alphonse Claude Charles Bernardin Perregaux (1785-1841). For the lives of Perregaux and his daughter, see Paul de Pury, "Jean-Frédéric Perregaux," _Musée Neuchâtelois_ n.s. 6 (1919): 7-12; Jean Lhomer, _Le banquier Perregaux et sa fille, la duchesse de Raguse_, Paris, 1926; Romuald Szramkiewicz, _Les Régents et censeurs de la Banque de France nommés sous le Consultat et l'Empire_, Geneva, 1974: 311-318; Geoffrey De Bellaigue, "Jean Frédéric Perregaux, the Englishman's Best Friend," _Antologia di Belle Arti_ 29-30 (1986): 80-90. [3] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2262.
