Photo. Giraudon.
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ELISABETH OF AUSTRIA, QUEEN OF FRANCE. François Clouet (About 1567). Bibl. Nat. Paris. |
JOSSINE DE PISSELEU, NICKNAMED HEGLI. François Clouet (About 1542). Musée Condé. |
To face page 234.
Another portrait by François Clouet, equalling this in excellence, is that of la bonne petite reine, Elizabeth of Austria in the Louvre—the youthful consort of Charles IX, whose simple virtues shone out so conspicuously during a most degenerate period in the history of the French Court. The perfection of draughtsmanship in the delicate features is astonishing; and the colouring, of a pale rosy hue, is most effective. The hands, placed one over the other, have in their graceful movements been justly likened to the petals of a white lily. There is a copy of this picture at Chantilly, probably also by François Clouet, but the exquisite hands are absent. Nor are they to be found in the original drawing in the Bibliothèque Nationale, in the famous Lecurieur album which once belonged to François Clouet’s own nephew, Benjamin Foulon. Maréchal Strozzi, Madame de Retz, Albert de Gondi the Duc de Retz, Robert de la Marck, the Duc de Bouillon, Jeanne d’Albret in deep mourning, and many others, have the same provenance and all bear notes in Foulon’s[124] handwriting. It has been suggested by Henri Bouchot that these admirable designs came to the nephew from his uncle who had preserved them in his studio in order to reproduce them subsequently in colour. We may presume then that these original pencil drawings were the immediate work of François Clouet, whilst the coloured portraits were reproduced from them either by himself (as in the case of the portraits of Elizabeth of Austria in the Louvre and at Chantilly) or by the hands of his pupils.
There is, however, one exception to this proposition in the case of the portrait of Pierre Quthe recently acquired for the Louvre. It certainly appears to be a portrait painted direct from life and not reproduced from a drawing; and it reveals to us a new and more intimate characteristic of the artist; since he has here shown us one of his own personal friends, with whom he, no doubt, had many tastes in common. Had this not been so he would not have appended to the picture the following inscription: FR. JANETT OPUS PE. QUTTIO. AMICO SINGULARI ETATIS SVE XLIII, 1562. This portrait, therefore, when compared, for instance, with that of Charles IX at Vienna, gives the impression of being less conventional and more sympathetic. It has the same bluish curtain in the background, and an open book lies on the table, in which may be seen representations of certain plants, alluding to the fact that the person represented was well known as a botanist.
Since the discovery of the portrait of Pierre Quthe we can have no hesitation in attributing to François Clouet another life-size portrait at Chantilly: namely, that of Cardinal Odet de Coligny, hitherto—though with some reserve—assigned to Primaticcio on account of a misleading signature evidently posterior to the painting. This portrait and that of Henri II (Cabinet Clouet) (also attributed, and with much more reason, to Primaticcio), clearly exhibit the difference between the respective artists without need for any further comment. The curtain in the background, for which François had so decided a predilection, is also to be found in the portrait of Odet; and it appears to have been Clouet’s latest work. It exhibits very decidedly his appreciation for Italian methods, more especially those affected by Morone and Moretto of Brescia, to whose work these two large portraits by François Clouet bear a marked analogy.