Cliffs by the Sea at C?zembre, Brittany, c. 1830. Isabey was primarily known for his watercolours and paintings of marine and beach scenes. As a young artist, he met and befriended Eugene Delacroix and Richard Parkes Bonington and traveled with them to England in 1825 where he was able to study the work of J. M. W. Turner and the English watercolourists. Isabey was one of the first French painters to work en plein air, or directly from nature. He proved to be an important French landscapist whose life spanned almost the entire 19th century. He contributed illustrations to the Voyage pittoresques et romantiques and became a sought-after watercolourist and painter of historical landscapes.