THE MAÎTRE DE MOULINS
Chauvinistic French critics have made much capital out of the important national school that is supposed to have flourished towards the end of the fifteenth century at Moulins, and especially of the mysterious “Maître de Moulins,” so called from a famous triptych at Moulins which cannot be proved to be the work of a French painter, and shows very marked Italian characteristics, although the types of the faces are distinctly French. Italian painters had been working in France ever since Simone Martini (1285?–1344) was employed to decorate the Pope’s Palace at Avignon; and in the absence of definite documentary evidence it will always remain a difficult matter to decide whether certain pictures, Italian in style and French as regards the types, are the work of Italian masters painting in France, or of Frenchmen trained by Italians.
To the Maître de Moulins have been loosely ascribed certain pictures in the Louvre collection, especially since attempts have been made, in the face of great improbability, to identify him with Jehan Perréal, or Jehan de Paris, one of the few painters of that period whose French nationality has been satisfactorily established. Perréal was born at Lyons, and became Court painter in Paris to Charles viii. and Louis xii. In this capacity he was sent to England at the time of the marriage of Louis xii. with Princess Mary Tudor, to design the bride’s toilettes. If Perréal be the painter of The Virgin between Two Donors (No. 998d, formerly No. 1048, and now labelled No. —48), which bears upon the pilasters of a balustrade the letters “I P,” he is certainly not identical with the Maître de Moulins to whom have been attributed the portraits of Pierre II., Sire de Beaujeu, Son-in-Law of Louis XI. (No. 1004), and his wife, Anne of France, Duchess of Bourbon, Daughter of Louis XI. (No. 1005), which are apparently the wings of a triptych of which the centre panel has disappeared. They are utterly lacking in charm of colour and are anything but masterly in treatment. Both the personages are portrayed kneeling, the husband being presented by his Patron Saint and the wife by St. John the Evangelist. The Portrait of Pierre was bought in 1842 by Louis Philippe for £20. The companion panel was presented to the Louvre in 1888 by M. Maciet. M. L. Dimier has rightly pointed out that there is no evidence whatever to prove these two pictures to have been painted by a French master. The Virgin between Two Donors (No. 998d) has lately been tentatively attributed to the “Master of the Ursula Legend.”