Besides the portraits of the Valois princes and princesses at Chantilly there are a great number of likenesses of other interesting historical personages. It would, however, lead us too far afield were we to attempt to enumerate them all. Amongst them, however, the most remarkable are as follows: Madame Vendôme d’Alençon,[106] mother of Antoine de Bourbon and of Louis I Prince de Condé (a drawing on a larger scale than most of the others); of the same size, Madame l’Estrange,[107] a lady renowned for her beauty and greatly beloved by the Dauphin François; Henri d’Albret, King of Navarre; Chandus, one of King Francis’ most faithful officers; and various portraits of Unknown Young Men. All these are excellently drawn, may be assigned to Jean Clouet and are evidently taken from life. In some of the portraits we can detect a point of transition between the joint work of father and son: for example, in a drawing representing Louis de Nevers,[108] son of a Princesse de Bourbon and related to the Princes of the House of Cleves. This drawing is incorrectly designated Saint Marsault; but a copy supplies the right name. There is a copy of it in colours in the Lochis Collection at Bergamo, which long passed under the name of Holbein until Dr. G. Frizzoni assigned it to François Clouet, who evidently executed it from the drawing at Chantilly. In this same connection may be mentioned the Sieur de Canaples,[109] and the portrait of an Unknown Lady of singular force of expression, very plainly clad and without ornaments, who may perhaps be Jeanne Boucault[110] of Tours, Jean Clouet’s own clever and devoted wife.
Plate LX.
Photo. Giraudon.
MADAME L’ESTRANGE.
Attributed to Jean Clouet. About 1535.
Musée Condé.
To face page 224.