The Dungeon of Polignac.

Eugène Isabey (1803-86) was the son of Jean-Baptiste Isabey, a well-known painter who enjoyed the patronage of Napoleon's Imperial Family. Originally, he wanted to be a sailor, but his father insisted that he study painting; a turnabout from the usual situation where the family opposes an artistic career in favor of something more practical.

After studying with his father and copying the Old Masters at the Louvre, he began sharing a studio with the landscape painter, Xavier Leprince, at Honfleur, Normandy in 1824, then moved to Saint-Siméon after Leprince's untimely death. The following year, he sent some landscapes to the Salon for his first formal exhibition.

In 1831, he was chosen to accompany a diplomatic mission to Morocco, led by the Comte de Mornay, but he politely refused. He had just returned from a short trip to Algiers, where he had painted scenes of the Royal Navy's campaign, and was concerned that the situation there was still too unsettled to make a lengthy stay. He was replaced by his friend and namesake, Eugène Delacroix, who created over 100 works that are now considered classics of Orientalism.

Shortly after, however, Isabey became a court painter for King Louis-Philippe and was named a Chevalier (Knight) in the Légion d'Honneur in 1832. One of his best-known paintings was done during this period, in 1840, depicting the return of Napoleon's remains from Saint Helena aboard the Belle Poule.

Isabey favoured historical paintings, genre scenes and landscapes, but also executed numerous canvases depicting storms and shipwrecks; possibly reflecting his own thwarted career plans. During a trip to England, he was known to have studied the works of J.M.W. Turner. He was especially skillful at rendering subtleties in darker colors; which might be called a form of grisaille. He took in students on a regular basis, including Eugène Boudin and Johan Barthold Jongkind. In his later years, he turned from marine painting to historical scenes, usually of a violent nature, such as massacres, duels and robberies.

This lithograph is Plate 175 from the series of prints that Isabey made for the 'Auvergne' chapter of the book Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans l'ancienne France (Picturesque and Romantic journeys in old-time France). Isabey presents us with a romantic, indeed sublime, view along a ridge to the ruins of Polignac castle, with one large keep (the dungeon or donjon, as in the French title), silhouetted against the sky at left. In the middle-distance, a mounted horseman addresses a peasant.

See: Wikipedia, 'Eugène Isabey', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Isabey

Dr Mark Stocker    Curator, Historical International Art     April 2018