Musée Condé.
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Henri de Mesmes, a gentleman of whom Brantôme speaks as “un très grand habile et subtil personnage d’état d’affaires de science et de toute gentillesse,” often acted as go-between for Catherine in her art dealings; and it was he who corresponded on her behalf with a certain Claude de Hery, who had been commissioned to make a new engraving from a portrait of Charles IX on his accession to the throne. This artist had failed to satisfy the Queen-Mother and the King, in spite of the fact that his work had been fully approved of by no less a personage than François Clouet himself.
One of the last works of François Clouet was a miniature of Elizabeth of Austria, executed in 1572 and destined for her sister-in-law, the Queen of Spain. The goldsmith Dugardin designed for it a golden frame; and here also Henri de Mesmes acted as medium, as is shown by a memorandum referring to it in the handwriting of Catherine de Medicis herself.
It was in this same year (1572) that the artist died; a year which was also fatal to Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of Navarre, who did not live to attend the nuptials of her son Henri IV with Margot de France. This took place shortly after her demise and not long before the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; a terrible event which reveals Catherine de Medicis in a very different light from that of a connoisseur and collector of works of art. There is a portrait of her in the Cabinet Clouet at Chantilly which dates from about this period. From it the bloom of youth has fled, the face has grown heavier and the smile is more than ever fixed and conventional.
The ablest contemporary and follower of the Clouets was Corneille de Lyon; but he in turn developed a decided individuality of his own. By him are those small portraits, painted upon light-green or light-blue backgrounds, which may be found scattered throughout the Galleries of Europe. As already mentioned, a likeness of the Dauphin François[129] at Chantilly (Tribune) has been attributed to him by Gaignières, to whom it once belonged. It is on the authority of this connoisseur that other portraits in the Musée Condé exhibiting the same style are by comparison assigned to him: such, for instance, as Le Grand Ecuyer de Boisy, Marguerite de France (sister of Henri II), Madame de Martigné Briant, a portrait supposed to be of Madame de Canaples, and a portrait of a young woman, erroneously styled Claude de Valois. [An authentic portrait of this latter lady, attributed to Clouet himself, is at Munich.] Madame d’Elbœuf, presented to the Louvre by the late Rudolph Kahn, is a fine example of Corneille’s skill.
Another artist who followed the Clouet style was Jean de Court, Court Painter to Henri III, the last of the Valois Kings, whose portrait in the Cabinet Clouet at Chantilly is probably an example of his work. His talent is much praised by Desportes; and this likeness of Henri III does not suffer in comparison with the portraits of Charles IX attributed to François Clouet. The pencil drawing of Marie Touchet, Charles IX’s mistress, in the Bibliothèque Nationale is also attributed to him.
Plate LXX.