ISABEY Jean-Baptiste - ALS to a fellow artist
Jean-Baptiste ISABEY (1767-1855)
Autograph Letter Signed (“Isabey”) to a fellow artist, Monsieur Mansion[?] in Montmartre, sending him a penniless young man in need of lessons.1 page 8vo in French with integral address leaf, n.p. [but Paris], n.d.
Trans: “Tomorrow morning a young man without means and who cannot pay his master will call on you. He would need 3 or 4 months of lessons. Let us remember our young days and let us do for others what was done for us. . . . I wanted to go see you this morning but was detained at home.”
Jean-Baptiste Isabey’s talents were many and varied. He was a pupil of Jacques-Louis David, but did not follow in his footsteps as a painter of monumental historical scenes, preferring miniatures for which he became famous, as well as portraits. He was patronised by a succession of rulers, from Marie Antoinette to Josephine, Napoleon, Marie Louise (teaching her watercolour painting), Louis XVIII and Charles X. But his talents went further – he designed the dresses of the principal participants in Napoleon’s coronation in 1804; he was the chief designer at the Paris Opera; he designed for the Sèvres porcelain manufacture; he designed for the Lyon silk manufacturers and designed Toiles de Jouy; and much more.
The address leaf her been slightly torn when the letter was opened, and the mark of the red wax seal is visible at the bottom of the address leaf.
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