The Snow (from Lithographies diverses')

Jean-Baptiste Isabey

The catalogue raisonné entry translates to: "The Snow. The drawing is taken from inside an open shed. A woman seen from behind is putting her foot on the doorstep. A small flag-shaped sign is fixed to one of the hangar beams on which can be distinguished a cross."

An atmospheric lithograph by Isabey, one of a series that were done to show the versatility of the medium. The viewer looks through a dark barn out to the light, a gentle snow storm, a technique that Whistler used to great success a half century later.

This image was the first in a series of 10 lithographs done for the 1818 publication "Diverse Essais Lithographiques de J.B. Isabey Publies a Paris en 1818". The publication was meant to display the diversity of lithography, a kind on notebook, printed by Godefroy Engelmann and published by Alphonse Giroux. All the stones were drawn by Isabey. Seven of the ten images have Isabey's individual embossed stamp with initials "J.I." Three lithographs, including this, were signed in the stone. Isabey went on to specialize in portraits and miniatures.

Godefroy (Gottfried) Engelmann (1788-1839) experimented with the new process of lithography from 1813 after reading the first published book about lithography Das Geheimniss des Steindrucks ,Tübingen, 1810 (The Secrets of Lithography) by Heinrich Rapp (1761-1832). Engelmann's first press was in Mulhouse, France his second opened at 18, Rue Cassette, Paris, on 15 June 1816. On 3 August he sent prints to the Acadamie Royale des Beaux-Arts, which appointed a commission to study lithography; 23 days later he deposited Le Chien de l'aveugle by Pierre-Antoine Mongin (1761-1827) at the dépôt légal (Paris, Bib. N.)

France's supremacy with lithography sprang largely from Engelmann's improvements, and the process came of age on 8 October 1817, when it was subjected to the same regulations as other graphic media.