LEBARBIER, Jean-Jacques-François

(b. 1738 Rouen, d. 1826 Paris)

Jean-Jacques-François Lebarbier (Le Barbier), French painter, illustrator and writer. He began his studies in Rouen and, at 17, won first prize for drawing at the city’s Académie. Shortly afterwards he travelled to Paris, entering the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture as a student of Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre. In 1767-68 he was in Rome, a fact confirmed by a number of dated and inscribed drawings and paintings, including the pen, ink and wash drawing Landscape Inspired by the Gardens of the Villa d’Este at Tivoli (Paris, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts). He was in Switzerland in 1776, where he spent several years drawing illustrations for Beát Zurlauben’s Tableau de la Suisse ou voyage pittoresque fait dans les treize cantons du Corps Helvétique (Paris, 1780-86).

In 1780, having returned to France, he was approved (agréé) by the Académie Royale and received (reçu) in 1785 with Jupiter Asleep on Mount Ida (Paris, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts). Thereafter he regularly exhibited moralistic pictures at the Salon until 1814, including the Canadians at the Tomb of their Child (Rouen, Musée des Beaux-Arts) and Jeanne Hachette at the Siege of Beauvais (Beauvais, Hôtel de Ville, destroyed 1940) in 1781, Aristoumenos and the Spartan Girls (Paris, Musée du Louvre) in 1787 and pictures of St Louis and St Denis in 1812, both of which indicate his interest in depicting religious themes and incidents from earlier French history.

A Female Turkish Bath or Hammam

This picture was painted to provide the design for an engraved plate to Ignatius Mouradgea d’Ohsson’s Tableau G�n�ral de l’Empire Othoman. The Tableau G�n�ral de l’Empire Othoman describe the daily life, mores and legal system of the Ottoman Empire, lavishly illustrated with engravings after designs by the leading artists of the day in France. Through this work, published over many years in both folio and octavo editions, the enigmatic Baron D’Ohsson, born into a French-Armenian family, became a hugely influential figure in our understanding and appreciation of the culture of the Ottoman Empire.

The present painting served as the basis for Plate 13 in the first volume.

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Chasing Butterflies

This painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1810 where it was titled La chasse aux papillons, ou all�gorie de la beaut� qui veut fixer l’inconstance (Chasing butterflies or an allegory of beauty attempting to restrain inconstancy). The unusual subject can be related to an event in 1810: Napoleon had married Marie-Louise of Austria, only a few months after divorcing Empress Josephine who was unable to bear him an heir. The ‘inconstancy’ might be that of the Emperor himself.

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