Projet d'aménagement de la Grande Galerie du Louvre, vers 1796

Hubert Robert painted Projet d'aménagement de la Grande Galerie du Louvre around 1796, depicting his vision for the renovation of the Louvre's great gallery that had recently been transformed into a public museum. Robert was keeper of the king's paintings before the Revolution and was involved in the planning for the museum that would house the royal collection after it was nationalized. His paintings of the Grande Galerie — showing the space as he found it, as he imagined it renovated, and as a ruin — constitute a remarkable series of architectural meditations on the relationship between cultural heritage, public access, and the fragility of civilization.

Robert renders the vast gallery space with masterful perspective and atmospheric light flooding through the proposed skylights. The composition combines architectural precision with the poetic sensibility for ruins and grand spaces that defined Robert's art.