Pierre Albert Roberti
( 1811-1864 )
Biography
Albert Roberti was a renowned artist of the day, both for his paintings, presented at the Salons of Fine Art in France and in Belgium, and for his teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels.
Born in Brussels, Albert Roberti trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels from 1834 to 1836.1 He also entered François-Joseph Navez’s private studio, the most accomplished painter of that time thanks to the long-standing ties between Navez and his mother, Marie Thérèse Roberti (1787-?). A portrait of Madame Roberti painted by François-Joseph Navez dated from 1831 is owned by the Museum of Fine Arts in Charleroi.
François-Joseph Navez was Jacques-Louis David’s student in Paris and when he went into exile in Brussels. As Director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels from 1835 until 1854, François-Joseph Navez taught to the majority of the great Belgian artists of the XIXth century.
Early in his career, Albert Roberti understood the importance of art exhibitions and started as soon as 1833 to present his paintings in Brussels. Albert Roberti obtained the right to keep his mother’s last-name, by royal decree (n°473) on August 13, 1835, rather than his father’s named Guillaume Suykens. Thanks to his ingenious idea, he invented himself an artistic filiation with the Italian painter of the Quattrocento Roberti’s Ercole2.
Albert Roberti remained very close to François-Joseph Navez during his life time. Their long correspondence testifies of the numerous advices Navez offered him during his one year stay in Italy, from June 1837, accompanied by the two Belgian painters Jean Baptiste Van Eycken and Jules Stroms. Albert Roberti visited, among others, Genoa, Piacenza, Parma, Florence, Naples. He copied Correggio’s and Annibale Carracci’s paintings in museums. He admired Raphael, Michelangelo, Andrea del Sarto, Titian, Fra Bartolomeo. In Rome, Albert Roberti met, because of François-Joseph Navez’s reputation, the current director of the French Academy, Jean-Auguste- Dominique Ingres. His trip to Italy was an important step before settling in Paris for ten years.
Albert Roberti’s intense Paris period was interspersed with regular stays in Brussels. From 1838, he exhibited jointly at the Paris Salon and at the Brussels Salon. He also presented paintings at the Salon of Lyon in 1840. Albert Roberti’s submissions to the various Salons, in Belgium and in France, were portraits, history and religious paintings. His artworks were well received by his peers. He was awarded two gold medals at the 1843 and 1846 Paris Salons, and a medal of honor from the Royal Society of Fine Arts and Literature of Belgium for his contribution at the 1844 Ghent Exhibition. Art critics praised his balanced compositions, the delicacy of his strokes and the elegance of his drawing style.
If Albert Roberti supported the philhellenic movement during the romantic era by presenting the portrait of the Ambassador of His Majesty the King of Greece to the King of the French at the Salon, his art remained faithful to the neoclassical canon, and oriented towards the representation of the great deeds of the Middle Ages.
93400 Saint-Ouen sur Seine