Jean-Baptiste Isabey

Jean-Baptiste Isabey

Isabey, Jean Baptist
(Nancy 1767 - 1855 Paris)
Isabey was one of the best portrait miniaturists of the 19th century and was famous far beyond France already in his time. He received his training with Jean Girardet, Jean-Baptist-Charles Cloudot and Jacques-Louis David. Since 1785 his stay in Paris is confirmed; where he very quickly rose to fame. He worked for Queen Marie-Antoinette and her courtiers, and after the Revolution for Josephine Beauharnais. Not only did he organize her festivities, but the coronation of Napoleon as Emperor and Josephine as Empress was also under Isabey' s artistic guidance. During the first Empire he held several posts as court painter. Napoleon' s second wife, Marie Louse, made use of his services as well, commissioning him with the portraits of her Austrian relatives in Vienna. In 1814 Isabey returned to Vienna - this time on behalf of Talleyrand - to portray the participants of the Vienna Congress. Isabey was an exceptionally brilliant artist, and apart from Augustin was without any true rivals in the field of miniature painting.Initially he preferred dark shades or landscapes for his backgrounds, but from about 1800 onwards he developed the background of the cloudy sky, which became a characteristic feature of his later work. He changed his painting technique as well: his brushstroke becoming more subtle and swifter, leading, together with his confident drawing to unmistakably delicate portraits of ladies and distinctly individualized portraits of gentlemen. Some parts of his paintings, especially the clothes were only intimated at, so that chiefly his female portraits in watercolours on paper have the appealing effect of a fleetingly devised suggestion. The use of delicate gossamer veils in portraits of ladies goes back to Isabey, allowing the artists to portray their sitters in feminine and perfect beauty, without having to idealize them. Countless contemporaries in France and other countries copied Isabey' s style and manner of painting. In Vienna Isabeys' s portrait painting was adopted only by some miniaturists, whereas he may have encouraged the popularity of watercolour portraits among Viennese painters.