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Portrait of a Woman
Jean-Baptiste Isabey (French, 1767–1855)
1835, retouched by the artist in 1843
- Medium
- Watercolor on vellum
- Classification
- Portrait Miniature
- Dimensions
- Overall: 12.3 x 17.4 cm (4 13/16 x 6 7/8 in.)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Jo Hershey Selden Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
French court artist Isabey was accustomed to painting royalty, but here he uses his delicate stipple technique to portray a simply dressed young woman with her books and writing implements. Her sensitivity to the whims of fashion is evident in the fact that eight years after painting her portrait the artist replaced her no longer fashionable “Apollo’s knot” hairstyle with ringlets and added gauzy sleeves to her gown.
