Jean-Baptiste Isabey (le père) (1767 – 1855), painter
1st image: Soirée; 2nd: caricature by Giraud (1853); 3rd: by Gavarnie (1854); 4th: by Eugène Isabey (1840); 5th: by princess Mathilde (c.1845).
At age 87, Jean-Baptiste Isabey is the oldest guest in de Nieuwerkerke's16 vendredi-soirée. He is one of three persons (Pradier03, Visconti09) that passed away before the 1855 Salon.
Isabey’s fame was at a point where he received commissions from all rulers: from Louis XVIII, Charles X, Napoleon I, to Louis-Philippe and Napoleon III. The emperor awarded him the Commander level of the Legion d’Honneur in January 1853, visible as the red neck ribbon in the painting. Eugène Isabey75 probably accompanied père Isabey to a vendredi-soirée in 1853, and gained his own place on the painting.
After a false start, in which his father aimed him to become a violinist and his brother, Louis, a painter, the roles were reversed, and Jean found his passion in painting. Moving from his birthplace Nancy to Paris at the age of nineteen, he found that his idol, the famous neoclassical painter Jacques Louis David, went away on a trip to Italy, so he temporarily found a position with miniature painter Dumont.
Upon David’s return, Isabey could become his student, provided he would pay David for this honor. Via some lucky encounters, Isabey could make ends meet by painting miniatures for the royal family at Versailles.
The revolutionary David was opposed to receiving commissions from the royal family and accepted Isabey as student at no fee. Soon, the young Isabey became part of the ‘David studio’ and completed accessory scenes on David’s paintings.
To make a living, Isabey continued to draw miniatures, and developed a watercolor-like technique to increase his speed.
Changes in society also caused changes in his client-base, and he became popular for painting miniatures of revolutionary leaders. Members of the new republic, famous and infamous, and other celebrities frequented his studio for miniatures. Especially snuffboxes (video), used to inhale spiced tobacco powder through the nose, were fashionable among the elite in the late 18th and early 19th century.
Emperor Napoleon I and his wife Josephine became his new patrons, and commissioned him to draw all aspects of his coronation as emperor in 1804. Isabey published his drawings in the book Le sacre de S. M. l'Empereur Napoléon in 1815.
Since 1809, he worked from his studio at the porcelain factory in Sèvres, the place where Regnault50a became director in 1852.
He passed away of old age on April 18, 1855, and may have never seen the completed version of Une soirée au Louvre. As with the art of engraving of Henriquel-Dupont51, the art of miniature portrait painting was replaced by photography in the second half of the 19th century.