Hubert Robert attended a Jesuit college at Navarra from 1745 to 1751. Shortly after he was apprenticed to Michel-Ange Slodtz whom taught him the principles of perspective and draughtsmanship and resulted in the young artist focusing his talents on painting. In 1754, he travels to Rome with Étienne François de Choiseul, the son of France’s new ambassador to Rome. The painter spent a total of 11 years in the eternal city, a remarkably long period considering he did not have an official post at the Académie de France in Rome. He mingled with artists and collectors, among other Piranesi, whom had a great and lasting influence on his work. He was also invited to join his peers at the Palazzo Mancini where he got acquainted to the young Jean Honoré Fragonard and Jean-Claude Richard de Saint-Non, an amateur with outstanding taste. He commissioned multiple drawings of Italian cities and Roman ruins from both artists with a view to publish. In April of 1760 Jean-Claude Richard de Saint-Non takes Hubert Robert to Naples and to Pompeï to visit the archeological sites which would eventually find their way into his capricci. Upon his arrival in Paris in 1765 the intellectual and cultural aristocratic elite is instantly seduced by his work. A year later he is acknowledged by and received at the « Académie Royale » He is successively chosen by the court for the positions of « Dessinateur des Jardins du Roi », « Garde des tableaux du Roi » and « Garde du Museum », these stations place Hubert Robert at the center of artistic and cultural life at court. He is also commissioned to refurbish parts of the the royal residences like the « Hameau de la Reine » or other prestigious projects like the gardens Méréville for the Marquis de Laborde and the gardens at d'Ermenonville for the Marquis de Girardin. During the revolution, the artist is arrested in 1793 and imprisoned at Sainte-Pélagie and Saint-Lazare. He survives this dark chapter of his life painting scenes of prison life on plates before being released after Robespierre’s downfall in July 1794. After the turmoil of the revolution he quickly regains a reputation and is reinstated in 1795 as conservator at the Museum National, the future Musée du Louvre.  Hubert Robert dies on the 15th of April 1808 of a stroke. During his stay in Italy the artist collects and draws landscapes and ruins which earned him the pseudonym « Robert des ruines ». His paintings are of poetic interpretations of landscapes around Rome, Paris and Parisian region. He also paints fantastical compositions like the « grande galerie » of the Louvre reduced to ruin, the Hotel Dieu burning to the ground or the demolition of the Notre-Dame bridge. He frequently showed work at the Salons in the Louvre and worked for many collectors, the Hermitage Museum in Saint-Petersburg houses one of the most important collections of his work along with the Valence Museum in Southern-France. The present painting, traditionally called, The Waterfall, is a pendant to The Canal, which was last recorded with Newhouse Gallery, New York (see figure 1). Obviously, part of a large set, this impressive piece of painting, proves us, one more time, the Hubert Robert reputation, able to create fascinating huge decor for aristocratic family over Europe. The costumes of the figures here, particularly the white dress of the lady gesturing over the artist's shoulder, suggest that this canvas was executed circa 1800, when the Directoire style, which lasted from roughly 1793-1804, was at its height.  This painting is a testament to the universal and lasting appeal of Robert's art.  Even after the Revolution, the artist continued to receive major commissions for decorative schemes from such patrons as Legendre d'Onzembray in France, and Count Stroganoff, Catherine II, and the Yusupov in Russia. Fig.1 : Hubert Robert, Le canal, private collection.