This, however, did not prevent him, as soon as he became King, from taking up François Clouet, whom he commissioned not only to make a post-mortem effigy of the late King, but also to prepare an official representation of himself. His own portrait bears a note upon it, apparently in the artist’s own handwriting, “Le Roy Henry 2”[116]: handwriting which bears close similarity to an existing quittance signed F. Clouet. This drawing, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, became very popular. A version completed in colours, is now in the Louvre: it was reproduced in miniature; and many copies were subsequently made by lesser hands.
Contemporary with this portrait is a powerful likeness of the Grand Connétable, Anne de Montmorency,[117] evidently taken from life. In this drawing the individuality of the artist is very marked: more realistic in his tendencies than his father, he is on that account more French. This great warrior, the Lord of Chantilly, is shown here when at the height of his fame, in high favour with the King and with l’amie du roi, Diane de Poitiers.[118] This famous lady herself sat to François Clouet, and so apparently about the same time did Catherine de Medicis, and also Jeanne d’Albret,[119] Queen of Navarre. It is interesting to compare the likeness of this latter princess, so eloquent of a noble mind and a frank disposition, with that of Catherine de Medicis, past mistress in the art of dissimulation.
Plate LXIII.
Photo. Hanfstaengl.
CHARLES IX.
François Clouet. About 1569.
Vienna Gallery.