The Château at Chambord, France

The Château at Chambord, France from around 1830 by David Roberts depicts one of the supreme achievements of French Renaissance architecture, Francis I's hunting lodge in the Loire Valley. Chambord's extraordinary roofline—a forest of chimneys, dormers, and towers that represents the Renaissance ambition translated into stone—offered Roberts one of his most spectacular architectural subjects. He traveled through the Loire Valley making studies of the great châteaux at a time when this architecture was gaining new appreciation through the Romantic revival of interest in the French Renaissance. Roberts rendered Chambord's vast scale and ornate detail with the meticulous precision developed over years of architectural study, situating the building in its flat wooded landscape to emphasize its fantasy quality. The work is held at the Cooper Gallery.

The chateau's elaborate architecture is rendered with Roberts's precise draftsmanship, the complex roofline and vast facade captured with characteristic thoroughness.