Group of Artists in Jean-Baptiste Isabey's Studio

Louis Léopold Boilly

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This sheet is a study for one of Boilly’s most famous paintings depicting a gathering of artists in the studio of Jean-Baptiste Isabey (French, 1767–1855). The finished canvas, exhibited at the Salon of 1798, is a group portrait of thirty-one prominent artistic figures, each one a closely observed portrait that was studied in an individual oil sketch. This quickly worked study, constructed of velvety shadows and sparkling highlights, focuses on the group of figures around a table that appears on the right side of the composition. Through the variety of their poses and activities, Boilly stressed the creative conviviality of the artist’s studio.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art