JEAN JACQUES FRANÇOIS LEBARBIER I (1738-1826)

FURTHER INFORMATION COMING SHORTLY
 
 
MOURNERS AT A TOMB WITHIN CLASSICAL RUINS
Signed l.l. Lebarbier del á Rome
Watercolour with black chalk
45 x 35 cm
 
PROVENANCE:
Private collection, Germany
 
 
 
 
Born in Rouen on 29 November 1738, Jean-Jacques François Le Barbier studied painting in and around his home city in his youth. Arriving in Paris, he trained with Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre at the École de l’Académie Royale. In 1780, he was made an associate member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture, becoming a full member in 1785. Le Barbier first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1789 and, with the exception of one year, continued to do so until 1799.
 
His earliest canvases are rococo-inspired history paintings in the fashionable style of Joseph Marie Vien, but soon thereafter he embraced the more rigorous Neoclassical manner of Jacques-Louis David, taking up subjects from ancient history and patriotic themes related to the French Revolution. He was a partisan of the Revolution and an active participant, serving as a member of the Paris Commune (1789-1795) and chosen, along with David, to assist in the ‘regeneration’ of the Académie Royale. Roughly ninety paintings by the artist survive or are recorded and he was a prolific draftsman, illustrator and writer.