Jean Barbault

Jean Barbault
Born	c. 1718 France
Died	1762 Rome
Nationality	French
Education	French Academy in Rome
Known for	Painting, etching
Notable work	Les Plus Beaux Monuments de Rome Ancienne, 1761
Movement	Historical themes, Orientalist themes

Jean Barbault (1718–1762) was a French painter, etcher and printmaker, who worked in Rome for most of his life. He is noted for paintings of local people, wearing traditional costumes or Oriental costumes and for his work documenting iconic Roman monuments and antiquities which were published in two volumes.

Life and career

Temple Priest, painted in 1748, now in the Louvre.

Jean Barbault was born in France in around 1718 and was a student of Jean Restout II in Paris. In 1745 he failed to win the Prix de Rome, but travelled to Rome in 1747 at his own expense. He spent most of his career in Italy, where he lived from around 1747. There, he was admitted to the French Academy in Rome in Rome in 1750. He was a "disciple of Piranesi" and "was fascinated by Rome's sprawling Baroque thoroughfares". In 1748, he made engravings for the Varie vedute di Roma antica e moderna published in Rome. Very little is known of his early life.

Many of his works are small paintings depicting individual figures, either Italian women, or his fellow artists. He notably executed a series of paintings of French artists who participated in the Turkish mascarade organized in 1748 to mark the Carnival of the French Academy in Rome in 1748. For the Carnival, Barbault himself dressed as an Officer of the Sultan's Guards. In these works, painters are represented wearing fantastical "Oriental" costumes which were very much in vogue during the mid-18th century. In this regard, Barbault became one of the earliest proponents of representing traditional costumes, a custom that became fashionable and was emulated by many later French artists.

One of his larger works in oil on paper – almost four metres wide – depicts a group of artists taking part in a carnival procession entitled The Four Corners of the World. It now forms part of the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie at Besançon. He also painted scenes of ruins in a style similar that of Servandoni.

As a painter, Barbault has never been well known, and has been described as a "minor talent." He is perhaps better known for his etchings, especially the two sets of prints he published including: Monuments de Rome ancienne and Rome Moderne, both published in folio form. He also made a few engravings, including The Martyrdom of St. Peter, after Subleyras, and The Arrival of Columbus in America, after Solimena. He died in Rome in 1762, at the age of 43.

Barbault died in Rome in 1762.

An exhibition of his work was held in Beauvais, touring to Angers, Valence and Dijon, in 1974–5; another, which included about half of his known paintings, was staged at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg in 2010.

Work

Barbault not only produced individual paintings, engravings and sketches, but he also worked as an illustrator and published two folios of etchings documenting iconic Roman monuments.

Publications

• Les Plus Beaux Monuments de Rome Ancienne ou Recueil des plus beaux Morceaux de l'Antiquité Romaine qui existent encore, Bouchard et Gravier, Rome, 1761 [Series of 128 designed by Barbault with etchings by Jean Barbault, Carlo Nolli (1724–c. 1770) and Leonardo di Giovanni Pietro Bufalini (c. 1486–1552)
• Les Plus Beaux Edifices de Rome Moderne, 1763 [Published posthumously]

Painting and etching

• The Painter Clément in Turkish Costume, 1748, Red Chalk, Private Collection
• Neapolitan Sheperd and Buffalo Leaving a Cave, 1750, Oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg
• Peasant Woman of Frascati, 1762, Oil on canvas
• La Vénitienne, date unknown
• Self-portrait, Cini collection, Venice

Gallery

• 
  Greek Sultana, 1748
• 
  Neapolitan Shepherd and buffalo leaving a cave, 1750
• 
  Sarcophagus of Alexander Severus and Julia Mamaea from Monte del Grano, Etching, 1756
• 
  Temple de Venus et de Rome, from Les Plus Beaux Monuments de Rome Ancienne ou Recueil des plus beaux Morceaux de l'Antiquité Romaine qui existent encore 1761
• 
  A Young Woman Dressed in Neapolitan Fashion undated

See also

• List of Orientalist artists
• Orientalism

Further reading

• Dilke, Lady, French Engravers and Draughtsman of the 18th Century, George Bell, London, 1902

Sources

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bryan, Michael (1886). "Barbault, Jean". In Graves, Robert Edmund (ed.). Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers (A–K). Vol. I (3rd ed.). London: George Bell & Sons. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)