Live Auction 1162Centuries of Style, Silver, European Ceramics, Portrait Miniatures and Gold Boxes
AFTER JEAN-BAPTISTE ISABEY (FRENCH, 1767-1855)
Lot 144 THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR

AFTER JEAN-BAPTISTE ISABEY (FRENCH, 1767-1855)

Closed27 November 2013

Price Realised

GBP 7,500

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AFTER JEAN-BAPTISTE ISABEY (FRENCH, 1767-1855)
Napoleon I (1769-1821), Emperor of France 1804-1814/1815, in Coronation robes, white-lined gold-bordered red cloak, wearing the chain of the Imperial French Order of the Legion of Honour, gold coronet, a gold staff in his right hand and another in his left, gold sword worn at waist, inscribed in pencil below 'grand costume de l'empereur'
bearing signature 'Isabey' (lower right)
watercolour and pencil on card
rectangular, 10½ x 8½ in. (268 x 215 mm.), gilt-wood frame

Sotheby's, London, 25 November 1992, lot 579.

Specialist note

The present work compares with a portrait of Napoleon by Jean-Baptiste Isabey and Charles Percier, entitled, L'Empereur en grand costume, illustrated in the Livre du Sacre [Book of the Coronation], Paris, 1805, pl. IX. A similar-sized full-length watercolour by Isabey, signed and dated 1808, of Empress Josephine in corresponding colours to the dress worn by the Emperor in the present portrait, is in the Louvre (inv. no. RF 3829). For further information see exhibition catalogue Jean-Baptiste Isabey (1767-1855), portraitiste de l'Europe, Musée national des Châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau and Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, 2005-2006, p. 129, no. 63, illustrated in colour p. 47.