ERASMUS. JUST DE TOURNON.
Attributed to J. Perréal. Attributed to J. Perréal. (About 1515).
Musée Condé.
To face page 204.
It is strange that Bouchot and Dimier, and also Maulde La Clavière, accept as a foregone conclusion that both drawings and miniatures must necessarily be by the same hand. Yet everything points to the fact that the miniatures in question were copied subsequently (about 1519-20) from these very same drawings by Godfroy le Battave, the author of the excellent grisailles with which this manuscript is ornamented. It stands to reason that it was he who also reproduced the miniature of Francis I on the frontispiece of the first volume of the MS. in question. To judge from the costumes and headgears of these heroes they cannot be dated later than 1514-15, a period anterior to Clouet. It is therefore quite plausible to suggest that Perréal, who at the time of the Battle of Marignan was Court-Painter, received from Francis I the commission to portray his famous comrades, Artur and Guillaume Gouffier, Just de Tournon,[80] Odet de Foix,[81] Fleuranges, the Seigneur de la Palisse,[82] and Anne de Montmorency.
It is a curious fact that all the numerous sixteenth-century French drawings at Chantilly and in other collections should have been formerly attributed indiscriminately to “Janet,” a name employed to designate both the Clouets, Jean and François. Yet we know that Perréal was Court-Painter to Louis XII and that the latter was so enchanted with his work that when he was in Italy he sent for them “pour monstrer aux dames de par deça,” and referred to him as a “portraitiste de visages, qui peint de petits portraits sur parchemin, et sans rival en Italie.”[83] Some years later, after the death of his Queen, the aged monarch sent Perréal to England to paint a portrait of his affianced bride, Mary Tudor. He had previously been sent to Germany for a similar object, so that it was the most natural thing in the world for the young King Francis on ascending the throne to commission a painter, who had already been employed by his predecessor, to portray also himself and his warrior friends.
Yet another drawing at Chantilly may be attributed to Perréal representing Guillaume de Montmorency,[84] father of the celebrated Anne. Judging by the age and the attire this portrait must necessarily be assigned to an artist working before Jean Clouet’s time.
After having adduced these proofs in support of our argument it would seem to be going purposely out of our way not to prefer Perréal as the author of the Preux de Marignan rather than Jean Clouet; and especially as there are a vast number of drawings belonging to the period when Clouet was Court-Painter—1523-39—which clearly prove the greater elaboration of his style.
Plate LI.