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Drawings and portraits of Catherine as Dauphine and as Queen of France are comparatively rare. It is as a Queen-Dowager, growing old and well away on her career of dangerous intrigue, that we chiefly meet her in the Galleries of Europe. No small value can therefore be attached to the drawing in the British Museum which came to the nation through the Salting Bequest, inasmuch as it brings her before us at the period when her husband had just ascended the throne of France; and to another likeness at Chantilly, attributed to Corneille de Lyon, which is supposed to be the one executed when she passed through Lyons with Henri II in 1564. Brantôme relates that upon this occasion the great Diane de Poitiers received more homage than the Queen herself, and that portraits were drawn of all the royal ladies, amongst whom was the King’s sister Marguerite (soon to become Duchess of Savoy). The writer further tells us how Catherine, when fifteen years later she revisited Lyons as Queen-Mother, displayed much amusement at the old-fashioned attire in which she and her Court ladies had then been portrayed.
To the years between 1559 and 1570 belong the drawings in the Bibliothèque Nationale, which are considered as marking the height of this artist’s power. Such, for instance, are the portraits of Maréchal Strozzi (1567) and of Maréchal de Vielville[120] (1566), supposed to have been dated by the artist himself, a circumstance which greatly adds to their value.
We are on certain ground with regard to the genuineness of the signed and dated portrait of Charles IX now at Vienna; but, strange to say, the date has here clearly been tampered with. We can ascertain this from the fact that the young King in the portrait seems certainly only about twenty years of age, and since he was born in 1550 the date upon the picture ought to be 1569 instead of 1563. Furthermore, the original drawing (now at St. Petersburg) from which this finished painting was executed is dated 1569. There is also a miniature taken from it in the Louvre.
It would lead us too far if we were to mention all the drawings which bear the stamp of this master’s own hand, but there are some on which we ought to dwell as being examples of his finest work. Amongst these are the drawings in the Bibliothèque Nationale of the boy-King Francis II[121] and of his young and beautiful bride, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots.
In the delicate and subtle pencil drawing of the latter, more than in all her other portraits, we can detect traces of her world-renowned beauty; and this is how she must have looked when, with her young husband beside her, and surrounded by the great dignitaries of State, she entered the Cathedral of Notre Dame for her Coronation. Clouet has succeeded in conveying to us something of the sweetness of her smile, her wistful expression, and the thoughtful look in her eyes. In the miniature at Windsor, which is said to have been reproduced from this drawing, much of the refinement has been lost, and more attention has been paid to accessories, i.e. her dress and her ornaments.[122]
Plate LXIV
