Statue of a Vestal Virgin c. 1754 - 1765

Curator: Take a look at this quick sketch. It’s a pencil drawing by Hubert Robert, made sometime between 1754 and 1765, and it’s titled *Statue of a Vestal Virgin.* Editor: There’s a serene strength to her. Despite the looseness of the lines, I sense such a palpable presence, a certain gravity. It feels somehow more complete than just a preliminary study. Curator: Robert was fascinated with antiquity, like many artists of his time. Vestal Virgins, who maintained the sacred fire in the Temple of Vesta, represented civic virtue in ancient Rome. Robert clearly felt a draw toward the Neoclassical movement of this time period. Editor: Interesting! I always feel like that focus on the classical also romanticizes it, doesn't it? Robert gives the figure a quiet agency that complicates her symbolic function. She’s not merely guarding a flame; she looks like she’s about to offer a perspective. Or, more likely, lay down the law, to me anyway. Curator: Her outstretched hand certainly invites speculation. The column seems to emphasize a figure deeply invested in a kind of order—both social and visual. It makes you wonder about how powerful a symbol such an image would represent in pre-revolutionary France. Editor: Absolutely! It almost becomes like propaganda, a meditation on an ideal world. But Robert avoids any hard edges. The softness almost undermines the firmness of her intent. The incompleteness is almost...dreamlike. It makes one think, I imagine, of lost and dying things. Curator: It does possess an enigmatic allure, this blending of styles. A sketch invoking both permanence and something incredibly temporary—that makes Robert’s approach pretty compelling. Editor: It's almost a premonition, then: ruins that seem always already ruined. Robert’s drawing gives form to a feeling I can't quite shake. It feels fitting that all we are left with, in this moment, is a quickly done rendering. It invites something new, doesn’t it?