Eugène Isabey

Eugène Isabey, around 1860

Louis Gabriel Eugène Isabey (born July 22, 1803 in Paris , † April 27, 1886 in Montévrain , Département Seine-et-Marne ) was a French painter of Romanticism and academic realism .

life and work

The transfer of Napoleon's ashes on board the Belle Poule , October 15, 1840, oil on canvas, 1843

Eugène Isabey was a student of his father, the painter Jean-Baptiste Isabey (1767–1855). In 1830 he accompanied the campaign to Africa as a royal marine painter and presented a series of pictures from that theater of war.

With cheeky treatment, he sought, in particular, to reproduce the brilliant color and light effects, the pearls and spraying of the waves, the effects of the air, easily and wittily. This one-sided virtuosity of course often turned into indifference to the form and character of things themselves, which in his last pictures, especially in costume pieces, degenerated to the point of fleetingness. But his brisk, captivating manner has had a great influence on French and German artists ( Charles Hoguet , Eduard Hildebrandt ). Eugène Isabey also executed numerous watercolors . He died on April 27, 1886.

Works (selection)

His best-known representations include:

• The fight at Texel ( 1839 , in the Museum of Versailles ),
• The port of marseille ,
• The transfer of the ashes of Emperor Napoleon I ( 1843 )
• View of Boulogne (1845)
• Ceremony in Delft Church (1847)
• Marriage of Henry IV (1848)
• The embarkation of A. de Ruyter (1850, in Luxembourg)
• The shipwreck of the three-master Emily (1865)
• The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1869), Musée d'Orsay, Paris
• Exit of the sacristy in Bruges .

Web links

Commons : Eugène Isabey  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Isabey, 2) Eugène . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 9, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 27.