DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45257#0386
230
FRANQOIS CLOUET
popular. A version completed in colours, is now
in the Louvre: it was reproduced in miniature; and
many copies were subsequently made by lesser hands.
Contemporary with this portrait is a powerful
likeness of the Grand Conndtable, Anne de Mont-
morency / evidently taken from life. In this draw-
ing the individuality of the artist is very marked :
more realistic in his tendencies than his father, he
is on that account more French. This great warrior,
the Lord of Chantilly, is shown here when at the
height of his fame, in high favour with the King
and with I'amie du roi, Diane de Poitiers.2 This
famous lady herself sat to Frangois Clouet, and so
apparently about the same time did Catherine de
Medicis, and also Jeanne d Albret,3 Queen of Navarre.
It is interesting to compare the likeness of this
latter princess, so eloquent of a noble mind and a
frank disposition, with that of Catherine de Me-
dicis, past mistress in the art of dissimulation.
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
1 See Plate IV. 2 See Plate LXVIII.
3 See Plate IX.
FRANQOIS CLOUET
popular. A version completed in colours, is now
in the Louvre: it was reproduced in miniature; and
many copies were subsequently made by lesser hands.
Contemporary with this portrait is a powerful
likeness of the Grand Conndtable, Anne de Mont-
morency / evidently taken from life. In this draw-
ing the individuality of the artist is very marked :
more realistic in his tendencies than his father, he
is on that account more French. This great warrior,
the Lord of Chantilly, is shown here when at the
height of his fame, in high favour with the King
and with I'amie du roi, Diane de Poitiers.2 This
famous lady herself sat to Frangois Clouet, and so
apparently about the same time did Catherine de
Medicis, and also Jeanne d Albret,3 Queen of Navarre.
It is interesting to compare the likeness of this
latter princess, so eloquent of a noble mind and a
frank disposition, with that of Catherine de Me-
dicis, past mistress in the art of dissimulation.
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
1 See Plate IV. 2 See Plate LXVIII.
3 See Plate IX.