The Painter Jacques-Luc Barbier-Walbonne (1804): Art, History and Details

The Painter Jacques-Luc Barbier-Walbonne (1804) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is François Aubertin (French, 1773–1882); Jean-Baptiste Isabey (French, 1767–1855).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Aubertin masterfully combined aquatint and tooled stipple—two techniques used to create granular tone—to emulate the meticulous shading and velvety surface of Isabey’s original drawing. A close look at the print, especially in the areas of the shirt, the jacket, and its lapels, reveals the diverse variety of textures Aubertin achieved. When displayed in the 1804 salon, the print was titled The Little Smoker. This impression is printed on handmade “wove” paper, a modern, smoother kind of paper developed in England during the mid to late 1700s.

Object facts

• Title: The Painter Jacques-Luc Barbier-Walbonne
• Date: 1804
• Creator attribution: François Aubertin (French, 1773–1882); Jean-Baptiste Isabey (French, 1767–1855)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: aquatint, etching, and stipple
• Dimensions: Image: 26.7 x 20.9 cm (10 1/2 x 8 1/4 in.); Platemark: 32 x 24.4 cm (12 5/8 x 9 5/8 in.)
• Collection: PR - Aquatint
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1967.180

A detail from the museum

Before taking up printmaking, François Aubertin had a career as a soldier.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. Charles G. Prasse Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lécosse, Cyril. Jean-Baptiste Isabey: petits portraits et grands desseins. Paris : CTHS : Institut national d’histoire de l’art, 2018.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.