Portait of Villeau
Medium
Lithograph; only state
Dimensions
Sheet: 12 13/16 × 9 7/16 in. (32.5 × 24 cm) Plate: 5 7/8 × 4 3/4 in. (15 × 12 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1922
Accession Number
22.18.3
Tags
Art Historical Context
Jean-Baptiste Isabey, celebrated French miniaturist and portraitist active during the Napoleonic era Restoration period, created this *Portrait of Villeau* 1818. Rendered as a lithograph—the innovative printmaking technique invented just two decades earlier— the work captures the sitter's dignified profile with delicate lines and subtle shading. Measuring a modest plate size of 5⅞ × 4¾ inches, it exemplifies the intimacy of Isabey's portrait style, which blended neoclassical precision with emerging romantic expressiveness. Lithography's appeal lay in its directness: artists like Isabey could ...
About the Artist
Jean-Baptiste Isabey · 1767–1855
Jean-Baptiste Isabey (1767–1855) was a French painter and miniaturist whose extraordinary longevity and adaptability allowed him to serve as the preeminent portraitist of successive French regimes — from the court of Louis XVI through the Revolution, the Napoleonic Empire, the Restoration, and into the July Monarchy — making his career an almost unparalleled chronicle of French political and socia...