The difficulty of dealing with the Early French pictures at the Louvre is considerably increased by the uncertainty of their authorship, the attributions being in most cases tentative and much disputed. Throughout we feel the lack of a definite basis for comparative criticism—the absence of properly authenticated works by the very masters whose names have been recorded in contemporary documents. One of the earliest of these masters is Jean Malouel, a Fleming, whose real name was Malwaele, and who worked in the service of the Dukes of Burgundy at Dijon, where he died in 1415. To him has been attributed, without sufficient proof, the tondo of The Dead Christ supported by the Eternal Father (No. 996) and mourned by the Virgin, St. John and Angels.
Equally uncertain is the attribution of the Last Communion and Martyrdom of St. Denis, First Bishop of Paris (No. 995), on which are seen, against a gold background, in the centre, the Crucified Saviour and the Eternal Father surrounded by cherubs; on the left, Christ giving the Communion to the imprisoned bishop, with a praying angel in the foreground; and on the right, the Decollation of St. Denis and his two companions, St. Rusticus and St. Eleutherius. An attempt has been made to identify this interesting picture with one ordered by Jean-sans-Peur, Duke of Burgundy, from Jean Malouel, and finished after that master’s death by Henri Bellechose, another Flemish painter, born in Brabant, who worked at Dijon between 1415 and 1431.
The Entombment (No. 997) is the work of an unknown and presumably Flemish painter, who shows a certain affinity with the painter of the famous Parement d’autel de Narbonne (No. 1342 bis) of about 1374. This altar-front is supposed to be by Girard d’Orléans and his son Jean, under whose name both the Parement and the Entombment were shown at the Exhibition of French Primitives in 1904. But all these attributions are largely conjectural.
THE MAÎTRE DE MOULINS
Chauvinistic French critics have made much capital out of the important national school that is supposed to have flourished towards the end of the fifteenth century at Moulins, and especially of the mysterious “Maître de Moulins,” so called from a famous triptych at Moulins which cannot be proved to be the work of a French painter, and shows very marked Italian characteristics, although the types of the faces are distinctly French. Italian painters had been working in France ever since Simone Martini (1285?–1344) was employed to decorate the Pope’s Palace at Avignon; and in the absence of definite documentary evidence it will always remain a difficult matter to decide whether certain pictures, Italian in style and French as regards the types, are the work of Italian masters painting in France, or of Frenchmen trained by Italians.
To the Maître de Moulins have been loosely ascribed certain pictures in the Louvre collection, especially since attempts have been made, in the face of great improbability, to identify him with Jehan Perréal, or Jehan de Paris, one of the few painters of that period whose French nationality has been satisfactorily established. Perréal was born at Lyons, and became Court painter in Paris to Charles viii. and Louis xii. In this capacity he was sent to England at the time of the marriage of Louis xii. with Princess Mary Tudor, to design the bride’s toilettes. If Perréal be the painter of The Virgin between Two Donors (No. 998d, formerly No. 1048, and now labelled No. —48), which bears upon the pilasters of a balustrade the letters “I P,” he is certainly not identical with the Maître de Moulins to whom have been attributed the portraits of Pierre II., Sire de Beaujeu, Son-in-Law of Louis XI. (No. 1004), and his wife, Anne of France, Duchess of Bourbon, Daughter of Louis XI. (No. 1005), which are apparently the wings of a triptych of which the centre panel has disappeared. They are utterly lacking in charm of colour and are anything but masterly in treatment. Both the personages are portrayed kneeling, the husband being presented by his Patron Saint and the wife by St. John the Evangelist. The Portrait of Pierre was bought in 1842 by Louis Philippe for £20. The companion panel was presented to the Louvre in 1888 by M. Maciet. M. L. Dimier has rightly pointed out that there is no evidence whatever to prove these two pictures to have been painted by a French master. The Virgin between Two Donors (No. 998d) has lately been tentatively attributed to the “Master of the Ursula Legend.”
THE DE SOMZÉE “MAGDALEN”
To the Maître de Moulins has also been attributed the somewhat overrated Magdalen with a Female Donor (No. 1005a), which was formerly in the de Somzée collection at Brussels, and was, some time after the Exhibition of French Primitives in 1904, bought from Messrs. T. Agnew & Son for £5000. The supposed similarities that have been noticed between this picture and the Moulins triptych on the one hand, and Jehan Perréal’s authenticated design for the tomb of the Duke of Brittany at Rennes on the other hand, are not sufficiently convincing either to arrive at a definite conclusion as regards the authorship of this Magdalen, or to establish the identity of the Maître de Moulins with Jehan Perréal.
Of an even more problematic nature are the Pietà (No. 998c, formerly No. 998) and the Calvary (No. 998a), of which it is only safe to affirm that both were painted in France, the background showing in the case of the former the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the Seine, the Louvre, and the Butte Montmartre; and in the latter an equally distinguishable view of the Seine, the Louvre, and other buildings. Both pictures appear to be the work of Flemish painters who were not entirely uninfluenced by Italian art. This Calvary is labelled “Retable du Parliament de Paris,” and was formerly in the Palais de Justice in Paris.
We need not dwell at any length upon the school of Douai, which should be considered as a branch of the Flemish rather than a national French school. Jean Bellegambe (c. 1470–1535) is its chief representative, and presumably the author of the small wing of a triptych depicting the figure of St. Adrian (No. 13a) which was formerly catalogued as being of the German school (No. 2739).