Jean-Baptiste Debret
(April 18 1768 –
June 28 1848) was a
French
painter, who produced many
valuable lithographs depicting the people
of Brazil
.
Debret studied at the
French Academy of Fine Arts, a
pupil of the great
Jacques-Louis
David (1748-1825) to whom he was related. He accompanied David
to Rome in the 1780s. His debut was at the
Salon des Beaux Arts of 1798, where he got
the second prize.
He
travelled to Brazil in March 1816 as a member of the so-called
French Artistic
Mission, a group of bonapartist
French artists and artisans bound to creating in Rio de Janeiro
an arts and crafts lyceum
(Escola Real de Artes e Ofícios) under the auspices of King D. João VI and the
Conde da Barca, which later became the
Academia Imperial de
Belas-Artes (Imperial Academy of Fine Arts) under Emperor
Dom Pedro I.
As a
painter favored first by the Portuguese court in exile and later by
the imperial
court
in Rio, Debret was often commissioned to paint
portraits of many of its members, such as
Portuguese king Dom João VI and the
Archduchess Maria
Leopoldina of Austria, the first empress of Brazil, who married
D. Pedro I (Debret was commissioned to produce a painting of
her arrival for the marriage at the Rio port, as well as the public
acclaiming of the new Emperor). He established his
atelier at the Imperial Academy in December
1822 and became a valued
teacher in 1826. In
1829 Debret organized the first arts exhibition ever to take place
in Brazil, in which he presented many of his works as well as of
his disciples. Emulating David's role during the French Empire,
Debret was also involved in the drawing ornaments for many of
public ceremonies and official festivities of the court and even
some of the courtier's uniforms are credited to him.
He corresponded frequently with his brother in Paris. Noticing
After his brother's interest in his depiction of everyday life in
Brazil, he started to sketch street scenes, local costumes and
relations of the Brazilians in the period between 1816 and 1831. He
took a particular interest in
slavery of
blacks and in the
indigenous peoples in Brazil.
Together with the German painter
Johann Moritz Rugendas (1802-1858),
his work is one of the most important graphic documentation of life
in Brazil during the early decades of the 19th century.
Debret returned to France in 1831 and became a member of the
Academie des Beaux Arts.
From 1834 to 1839 he published his monumental series of three
volumes of engravings, titled
Voyage Pittoresque et Historique
au Brésil, ou Séjour d'un Artiste Français au Brésil ("A
Picturesque and Historic Voyage to Brazil, or the Sojourn of a
French Artist in Brazil").Unfortunately the work was not a
commercial success. In order to survive, he made lithographs
depicting paintings by his distant cousin David, but the editions
were very limited and money was short. Debret died poor in Paris in
1848.
Gallery
 Uruncungo Player
|
 Pelourinho
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 Family dining
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 Black women (1835)
Black women (1835)
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External links