13 - View of the ruins of the Palazzo Maggiore on the Palatine Hill with the Colosseum in the background; French School, late 17th–early 18th century; red chalk on paper, 137 x 209 mm

View of the ruins of the Palazzo Maggiore on the Palatine Hill with the Colosseum in the background; French School, late 17th–early 18th century; red chalk on paper, 137 x 209 mm The sheet depicts a view of the ruins of the so-called Palazzo Maggiore, the name by which the remains of the imperial palaces on the Palatine Hill were traditionally referred to in France between the 17th and 18th centuries. In the background, on the right, the silhouette of the Colosseum is recognizable, a feature that clearly situates the scene within the Roman context. The work belongs to the prolific tradition of views of Rome that developed primarily among French artists residing in the city between the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The subtle, analytical line of the red chalk, the descriptive precision of the architecture, and the attention to topographical rendering find parallels in the graphic work of Israël Silvestre and, more generally, among the French landscape artists active in Rome.Although it anticipates, in terms of artistic sensibility, certain aspects of Hubert Robert’s later paintings of ruins, the drawing retains a more linear and documentary structure, still far removed from the freer and more theatrical 18th-century interpretation of the archaeological landscape. Inscription at the top: “du palais major.”