Jean-Baptiste Isabey was a French painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 born at Nancy.

At nineteen, after some lessons from Dumont

François Dumont

François Dumont was a French painter of portrait miniaturesDumont was born at Lunville , and was left an orphan when quite young, with five brothers and sisters to support. He was for a while a student under Jean Girardet, and then, on. the advice of a Lunville Academician, Madame Coster, set up a...

, miniature painter to Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....

, he became a pupil of Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...

. Employed at Versailles

Versailles

Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...

 on portraits of the dukes of Angoulême and Berry, he was given a commission by the queen, which opens the long list of those which he received, up to the date of his death in 1855, from the successive rulers of France.

Patronized by Josephine

Joséphine de Beauharnais

Joséphine de Beauharnais was the first wife of Napoléon Bonaparte, and thus the first Empress of the French. Her first husband Alexandre de Beauharnais had been guillotined during the Reign of Terror, and she had been imprisoned in the Carmes prison until her release five days after Alexandre's...

 and Napoleon Bonaparte, he arranged the ceremonies of their coronation and prepared drawings for the publication intended as its official commemoration, a work for which he was paid by Louis XVIII

Louis XVIII of France

Louis XVIII , known as "the Unavoidable", was King of France and of Navarre from 1814 to 1824, omitting the Hundred Days in 1815...

, whose portrait (engraved, Debucourt) he executed in 1814. Although Isabey did homage to Napoleon on his return from Elba

Elba

Elba is a Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino. The largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago, Elba is also part of the National Park of the Tuscan Archipelago and the third largest island in Italy after Sicily and Sardinia...

, he continued to enjoy the favour of the Restoration, and took part in arrangements for the coronation of Charles X

Charles X of France

Charles X was known for most of his life as the Comte d'Artois before he reigned as King of France and of Navarre from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. A younger brother to Kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, he supported the latter in exile and eventually succeeded him...

.

The monarchy of July conferred on him an important post in connection with the royal collections, and Napoleon III granted him a pension, and the cross of commander of the Legion of Honor. "Review of Troops by the First Consul" was one of his most important compositions, and Isabey's "Boat,"--a charming drawing of himself and family-produced at a time when he was much occupied with lithography--had an immense success at the Salon of 1820 (engraved, Landon

Charles Paul Landon

Charles Paul Landon was a French painter and popular writer on art and artists.He was born in Nonant and entered the studio of Jean-Baptiste Regnault, where he made a lifelong friendship with Robert Lefèvre. He and won the first prize of the Academy in 1792, for study at the French Academy in Rome...

, Annales, i. 125). His portrait of "Napoleon at Malmaison" is held to be the best ever executed, and even his tiny head of the king of Rome, painted for a breast-pin, is distinguished by a decision and breadth which evidence the hand of a master.

A biography of Isabey was published by E. Taigny in 1859, and Charles Lenormant's

Charles Lenormant

Charles Lenormant was a French archaeologist.After pursuing his studies at the Lycée Charlemagne and the Lycée Napoléon, he took up law, but a visit to Italy and Sicily made him an enthusiastic archaeologist...

 article, written for Michaud

Joseph François Michaud

Joseph François Michaud was a French historian and publicist.He was born at Albens, Savoie, educated at Bourg-en-Bresse, and afterwards engaged in literary work at Lyon, where the French Revolution first aroused the strong dislike of revolutionary principles which manifested itself throughout the...

's Biog. Univ., is founded on facts furnished by Isabey's family.

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