Time spent in Rome was long considered essential to an artist’s education, and most traveling artists recorded their impressions of the Eternal City in sketchbooks. The Morgan holds a number of these, including examples by Edgar Degas and Joshua Reynolds and the one shown here, used by Hubert Robert when he was in Rome during the early 1760s.
Hubert Robert (1733–1808), Roman Sketchbook, ca. 1760–63. Purchased as the Gift of the Fellows with the special assistance of an anonymous contribution from a foundation, 1958.5.