Isabey, Jean Baptiste

Isabey, Jean Baptiste

(zhäN bätēst` ēzäbā`), 1767–1855, French portrait painter and miniaturist. He was a pupil of J. L. David and was greatly influenced by Fragonard. His portraits are graceful and strongly individualized. Isabey prospered under all the changing regimes, portraying in turn Marie Antoinette, Mirabeau, David, Napoleon (Versailles), Josephine (National Gall., London), and Louis Philippe. He was one of the first painters to make lithographs. Much of his work, which constitutes a historical document of great interest, is in the Louvre. His son, Eugène Louis Gabriel Isabey, 1804–86, was a marine and genre painter who also made lithographs. He is well represented at the Louvre; the Metropolitan Museum has one of his paintings.