The Arrival of His Royal Highness The Duke of Bordeaux at Chambord
Medium
Lithograph; only state
Dimensions
Sheet: 16 1/8 × 19 13/16 in. (41 × 50.4 cm) Image: 15 9/16 × 19 1/2 in. (39.6 × 49.5 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1922
Accession Number
22.18.4
Art Historical Context
This lithograph by Jean-Baptiste Isabey captures a moment of royal ceremony in post-revolutionary France. Created in 1821, the print depicts the arrival of the young Duke of Bordeaux—later known as Henri, Count of Chambord—at the Château de Chambord. As the posthumous son of the assassinated Duke of Berry and heir to the Bourbon line, the child’s presence symbolized renewed hope for the restored monarchy after the upheavals of the Napoleonic era. Isabey, already celebrated for his portraits of European royalty and statesmen, employed lithography—a relatively new medium prized for its ability ...
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...