James Jacques Joseph Tissot (October 15, 1836 – August 8, 1902) was a French painter.
His paintings of the Ark of the Covenant were the basis for the design of the actual Ark prop and Ralph McQuarrie's illustration, made to resemble an etching, as seen in Indy's Bible in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The chief labor of his later career was the production of 700 water-color drawings illustrating the life of Christ and events of the Old Testament.
He was still painting scenes from the Old Testament in the abbey of Buillon, in the department of Doubs, France when he died.
The merits of Tissot's Bible illustrations lay rather in the care with which he studied the details of scenery than in any quality of religious emotion. He seemed to aim, above all, at accuracy, and, in his figures, at a vivid realism, which was far removed from the conventional treatment of sacred types.
