It was, they said, a revelation; they spoke of it in relation to its technical aspects more particularly. It brought to light a number of French miniature painters whose ability was amply demonstrated, but who were almost or quite unknown at the present day, even to their own countrymen.
But the personality of these miniature painters and the remarkable people who sat to them must not make us ignore some earlier men to whom I shall now briefly refer.
In the first place I may call attention to the fact that, as might be expected, a comparison between French painters-in-little and those of Great Britain reveals some interesting differences, both technically and in respect of the treatment of the subject. The latter differences, which spring from national characteristics, will, I think, be brought out as we come to deal with the work of the various artists, and I shall not stop to enlarge upon them now.
At a time when we could boast in England of no native artist of importance—hardly one, indeed, can be named, for Nicholas Hilliard was not born until the middle of the sixteenth century—there was working in France a family of artists known as the Clouets, who produced portraiture of great excellence. What I have termed elsewhere the tangled skein of the history of the Clouets would take a great deal of unravelling. It is a subject to which foreign critics of eminence have devoted much time and trouble. Without following all their researches in detail, or professing to utter anything like the last word upon an obscure and difficult subject, it may be said to have been proved that the family was undoubtedly of Flemish extraction, and that they were firmly established at the French Court at the beginning of the sixteenth century. M. Laborde, in his "Renaissance des Arts à la Cour de France," quotes a deed of gift of property which had escheated to the Crown dated 1516, the second year of the reign of François I., which shows that, at any rate, by that time the Clouets were established in Royal favour.
L. SICARDI.
BENOIT BOULOUVARD DE SAINTE ALBINE AND SISTER.
(M. le Comte Allard du Chollet.)
The surname was probably originally Clouwet, and two members of the family, father and son, have been commonly known as Janet. This duplication of names, to say nothing of the varieties of spelling, has led to a good deal of confusion in the attribution of works by these artists. Among the latest authorities upon this subject I may quote my friend M. Dimier, of Paris, who contributed a chapter to my book on the portraiture of Mary Queen of Scots.[5]
The subject has a significance of its own for French art critics as throwing light upon the influences exerted upon French artists at the period of the Renaissance—that is to say, whether the work by the men of that time which has come down to us owes its highest artistic qualities to Italian influence, to native genius, or to Flemish influence. Critics are divided into two camps: those who stoutly maintain the claims of the French artists to originality, and those who are equally confident that it is to Italian influence we owe all that is most attractive in French art of that period. M. Dimier has acutely pointed out that whilst the Italian influence theory is anathema to many, these same critics allow the assertion of Flemish influence to pass without a protest.
Be all this as it may, it is quite clear that the vogue for portraiture in France at the beginning of the sixteenth century was extraordinary. Contemporary inventories show that drawings by the thousand must have existed. They were kept in albums in the houses of the great, and many collections are known. Catherine de Medici loved to have her children painted, and M. Bonafflé has shown that her estate included more than a hundred such portraits. There are numbers of these to be seen to-day at Chantilly, the old home of the Condés, not the least interesting of which is a series of eighty or ninety drawings in black and red chalk that once belonged to the Earl of Carlisle and formed part of the famous Castle Howard Collection.