Jean-Baptiste Debret

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Jean Baptiste Debret

Jean-Baptiste Debret (1768-1848) was a French painter, who produced many valuable lithographs depicting the people of Brazil.

Debret studied at the French Academy of Fine Arts and was a disciple of the great Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825). His debut was at the Salon des Beaux Arts of 1798, where he got the second prize.

He first came to Brazil in March 1816 as a member of the French Artistic Mission, which was in charge of 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 Marquis of Marialva, later upgraded to the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes (Imperial Academy of Fine Arts) under Emperor Dom Pedro I.

Debret, A Guaraní family captured by slave hunters.

As a painter favoured by the imperial court in Rio, Debret was frequently commissioned to paint portraits of many of its members, such as 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 exposition in Brazil, where he presented many of his works and of his disciples. He was also involved in the production of ornamental work for many of the public ceremonies and official festivities of the court.

Soon he developed an interest in ethnography and started to paint many scenes depicting the social 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 accurate work is to this day the most important graphical documentation of life in Brazil during the first half of the 19th century.

Debret returned to France in 1831 and became a member of the Academy of Fine Arts. From 1834 to 1839 he published his monumental series of three volumes of engravings, titled Voyage Pictoresque 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).