Hubert Robert. "The Pavilion of Apollo and the Obelisk", 1801

This 1801 landscape by Hubert Robert shows a quiet corner of a park: a pavilion with a statue of the Apollo Belvedere, an obelisk on a small island and a stretch of water. In the lower left two artists are sketching the obelisk, while a gondola approaches the island from the temple of Apollo. Tall firs rise behind the pavilion, a chain of hills is visible in the distance under a silvery blue sky; the painting is kept in brown tones.

Hubert Robert (1733–1808) spent eleven years in Rome and became famous for paintings of ruins and garden pavilions, which earned him the nickname "Robert of the Ruins". Later he became keeper of the royal collection that was being prepared for display in the Louvre. Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov commissioned paintings from Robert, and the Arkhangelskoye collection holds a series of his landscapes from 1801.

In 1816 two octagonal salons, the Northern and the Southern, were arranged in the palace for the artist's large canvases, designed for hanging big paintings. The work is painted in oil on canvas.