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(1) Jean-Baptiste Isabey
(b Nancy, 11 April 1767; d Paris, 18 April 1855). Painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He trained in Nancy with Jean Girardet (d 1778) and then with Jean-Baptiste-Charles Claudot (1733–1805), master of the miniaturist Jean-Baptiste Augustin. In 1785 he went to Paris, where he began by painting snuff-boxes. In 1786 he received lessons from the painter François Dumont, who had also studied with Girardet in Nancy, before entering the studio of David. Although he had received aristocratic commissions before the Revolution to paint portrait miniatures of the Duc d’Angoulême and Duc de Berry and through them of Marie-Antoinette, he did not suffer in the political upheavals that followed. He executed 228 portraits of deputies for a work on the Assemblée Législative and from 1793 exhibited miniatures and drawings in the Salon. Success came to him in 1794 with two drawings in the ‘manière noire’, The Departure and The Return. This type of drawing, using pencil and the stump to simulate engraving, was very fashionable in the last years of the 18th century and reached its peak with Isabey’s The Boat (exh. Salon 1798; Paris, Louvre), an informal scene including a self-portrait, in which the artist exploited contrasts of light and shade with considerable success.
Part of the Isabey family
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