Part 19

Although Gerard Honthorst (“Gerard of the Night”) was born as early as 1590, and was a pupil of Blomaert, he may he relegated to the period of decline. Almost invariably he resorted to the trick of lighting the figures in his pictures, whether he was painting religious subjects, portraits, or conversation-pieces, with a candlelight effect. This habit he had acquired in Italy by studying the style of Caravaggio. Of his five pictures here, the best is perhaps the _Portrait of Charles Louis, Duke of Bavaria_ (No. 2410), of 1640. His _Concert_ (No. 2409), painted sixteen years earlier, is an ill-balanced and overloaded composition.

Such artists as Abraham Hondius, who paints a _Man Selling Pigeons_ (No. 2407A); Karel de Moor, who was a pupil of G. Dou, and gives us an insignificant _Dutch Family_ (No. 2477); Eglon van der Neer, whose name is signed on a small panel, _A Man Selling Pigeons_ (No. 2485); Egbert van Heemskerck, whose _Interior_ (No. 2393) is in the La Caze collection; Jan Verkolie, whose _Interior_ (No. 2602) has been engraved; H. van Limborch, whose _Pleasures of the Golden Age_ (No. 2446) was in the collection of Louis XVI.; Louis de Moni, the painter of a _Family Scene_ (No. 2476); and Willem van Mieris, a replica of whose _Soap Bubbles_ (No. 2473) is at The Hague,—all these mediocre painters are the despair of the critic, and afford merely momentary entertainment for the curious.

It is apparent that by this period the art of Holland was marked by mechanical inventions, the surface of these eighteenth-century paintings being highly fused and metallic in appearance. The four panels of Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722), which include an unpleasant _Magdalene in the Desert_ (No. 2617) and a repulsive _Dancing Nymph_ (No. 2619), are characteristic examples of his monotonous art. The _Disembarkation of Cleopatra_ (No. 2441) and the _Hercules between Vice and Virtue_ (No. 2443) of Gerard de Lairesse (1640-1711), have the enamel-like smoothness and meaningless expression of academic art, although they have their usefulness as museum pieces.

It is a remarkable fact that the Louvre does not contain a single example of the revival of art in Holland in the third quarter of the nineteenth century.

THE EARLY FRENCH SCHOOL

The early phases of the French school of painting—perhaps it would be more correct to say of painting in France—present one of the most interesting problems to the student of art history. It was not really until the great Exhibition of French Primitives held in Paris in 1904 that any serious attempts were made to construct a history of Early French painting; but the learned arguments that have been brought to bear upon the tangled question have so far failed to establish the existence of an important autochthonous school in the fifteenth century. It is true that contemporary records mention the names of a few painters who seem to have enjoyed great repute at the Courts at which they were employed, but it has been impossible to connect any notable extant pictures with their names; whilst those other “French” painters who have left tangible proofs of their activity are almost without exception of Flemish birth and training. Indeed, most of these early pictures show no characteristics that may be described as French, save the types of the faces, which would naturally be taken from the country where the artists worked.

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).

JEAN FOUQUET

Of far greater importance is the school which flourished at Tours, for here at last we meet with clearly marked personalities whose names are definitely connected with extant works, even if the character of their art remains essentially Flemish. The best known artist of this group is Jean Fouquet (_c._ 1425-1480?), who was Painter to Charles VII. and Louis XI. and wrought the wonderful miniatures in the famous Book of Hours at Chantilly. He was distinctly more successful as an illuminator than as a painter, although his masterpiece, the Chevalier diptych (of which one wing is at the Antwerp and the other at the Berlin Museum), is a work of considerable merit. The Louvre owns an interesting painting from his brush—the portrait of the corpulent Chancellor of France, _Guillaume Juvénal des Ursins, Baron de Trainel_ (No. 288). He is depicted in three-quarter profile to the right, dressed in a fur-edged red robe, with hands folded in prayer, before an open book on a cushion. The pilasters in the rich architectural setting terminate in two bears supporting the Chancellor’s coat of arms. This important picture was bought in 1835 for the sum of £36. It was then attributed to Michael Wohlgemuth!

Fouquet is known to have painted Charles VII. in 1444; but the _Portrait of Charles VII., King of France_ (No. 289), with the inscription along the top, “LE TRÈS GLORIEUX ROY DE FRANCE,” and below, “CHARLES SEPTIESME DE CE NOM,” cannot certainly be identified with the picture referred to in contemporary records. The Louvre picture was acquired in 1838 for £18.

The name of Jean Fouquet has for a long time been connected with the admirable little portrait known as _The Man with the Wineglass_ (No. 1000, formerly No. 1000A). It was shown as a work of Fouquet at the Exhibition of French Primitives; and the attribution is still maintained by many French critics, although in the official Catalogue the picture is given to an Unknown French painter of the fifteenth century known as “The Master of 1456” from a dated picture in the Liechtenstein Gallery in Vienna. The whole style of the painting would, however, point to German origin, the only thing French about the picture being the type of the personage represented. It is interesting to note that this portrait, which was bought from a Paris dealer in 1906 for £7600, was formerly in the collection of Count Wilczek in Vienna, and was bought by its former owner at Ulm. It is probably the work of a painter of the Swabian school.

NICOLAS FROMENT

Nicolas Froment, the painter of the diptych _King René and his Second Wife, Jeanne de Laval_ (No. 304A), is frequently mentioned by those who have constituted themselves champions of a supposed important Early French national school. The few pictures with which he may be credited include the _St. Siffrein_, now in the Seminary at Avignon, the _Raising of Lazarus_, now in the Kaufmann collection at Berlin, and the _Burning Bush_, which includes the Portraits of King René and Jeanne de Laval, as the Donors who ordered the picture for the Cathedral at Aix, where it still is. But the Louvre diptych is an inferior work. Nothing is known about the dates of his birth and death. He flourished between 1460 and 1480, and was employed by good King René, who was himself a painter of some distinction, if contemporary chroniclers are to be believed. Froment died at Avignon, where he appears to have worked some considerable time, allowing his art to absorb those distinctly Italian tendencies which distinguished the productions of the Avignon school ever since Simone Martini had early in the fourteenth century worked in the Provençal city of the Popes.

A very typical instance of this Avignon school, with its blending of Northern realism and the noble sense of style of the early Italians, is the _Pietà_ (No. 1001B). The group of the Virgin with the rigid body of Christ across her knees, St. John on the left and the Magdalen on the right, has a sculpturesque dignity and grandeur not to be found in the Northern art of that period. The Donor on the extreme left rather destroys the balance of the composition. The mourners and the landscape are silhouetted against a gold background. The picture was formerly in the Chartreuse of Villeneuve near Avignon, and was bought by the Société des Amis du Louvre for the great French national collection at the price of £4000. A well-known Spanish critic has claimed that this is one of the very rare works by the Spanish artist Bartolomé Bermejo.

Of the same school, but vastly inferior in conception and execution, is the much restored _Christ rising from the Tomb, with a Donor and St. Agricola_ (No. 1001C). There are in Gallery X. (Salle Jean Fouquet) a few more anonymous fifteenth-century paintings, which need not here be discussed as they are of no real significance.

THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH SCHOOL

The mere fact that many of the drawings and paintings which are now with good reason believed to be the work of Jean or Jehan Clouet (called Jehannet) passed, at a time when art criticism followed methods less scientific than those which prevail at present, under the name of Holbein, should suffice to indicate that Clouet’s art belongs essentially to the Renaissance, and that the Primitive or Gothic period had come to a close when he arrived in France from the Netherlands, where he was born about 1475. He apparently worked first at Tours, where his presence in 1516 is testified by documentary evidence; and he went to Paris before 1529. Although he was never naturalised, he became Groom of the Chamber to François I., and enjoyed an enormous reputation for his skill in portraiture. He died in 1540 or 1541.

JEAN CLOUET’S DRAWINGS

Not a single drawing or painting that has come down to us from this period, which was remarkable for its enormous production in Court portraiture, bears the signature of Jehan Clouet; but as a number of the best portrait drawings in the famous Chantilly collection—notably that of the _Preux de Marignan_—are obviously from the same hand, and extend, as can be proved from the age of the personages portrayed, from 1514 to 1540,—the very years when Jean Clouet is known to have worked in France,—it is quite reasonable to assume that artist to be the author of this group of drawings. Their superiority over all the other drawings of the period would account for the fame enjoyed by the elder Clouet among his contemporaries.

On the strength of these drawings it has been possible to ascribe to Jean Clouet a few painted portraits which are obviously based on the drawings and show, apart from such differences as must necessarily result from the use of a different medium, the same characteristics—firm draughtsmanship, a sure delicate touch in the delineation of the features, and also a certain stiffness and hardness of contour which are never to be found in the otherwise very similar but always supple and masterly handling of Holbein. It is now known that practically all the painted portraits of the period were executed from the delicate drawings in black and red chalk, of which so vast a number have come down to our day. But the fact that the vast majority of these drawings served as models to different painters leaves the question of attribution in a state of uncertainty. The mere tracing back of a picture to some extant drawing of acknowledged authenticity cannot be taken as proof of their common origin.

Two pictures at the Louvre are attributed to Jean Clouet. Both are portraits of _François I., King of France_, but only the smaller one (No. 127) appears to be from his hand. Clouet’s royal patron is here depicted in three-quarter profile to the right, at the age of about thirty, so that the picture may be assumed to have been painted about the year 1524. It is based on a drawing in the Chantilly collection. The larger _Portrait of François I._ (No. 126) has at various times been attributed to Jean Clouet, Mabuse, and Joost van Cleef, but is, as has been pointed out by M. Dimier, pronouncedly Italian in colour and in the treatment of the costume and hands.

FRANÇOIS CLOUET

Towards the end of his life Jean Clouet was assisted in the execution of his numerous commissions by his brother Clouet de Navarre, to whom is attributed the _Portrait of Louis de Saint-Gelais, Lord of Lansac, Captain of one of the “Compagnies des cent Gentilshommes” under Charles IX._ (No. 134), and by his son François Clouet (1500?-1572). It has been stated that François Clouet, who was to become after his father’s death the favourite portrait painter of François I., Henri II., Catherine de Médicis, François II., and Charles IX., was born at Tours; but it is far more likely that he too was born in the Netherlands, and, while still young, accompanied his father to France. Practically nothing is known of his life before the year 1541, when François I. renounced to Clouet his kingly right to the artist’s inheritance, which could have been claimed by the Crown as the estate of a foreigner. In the same year François Clouet was appointed Groom of the Chamber and Painter-in-Ordinary to the King.

The Louvre is fortunate in possessing one of the exceedingly rare signed pictures by this artist in the _Portrait of Pierre Quthe_ (No. 127A), which was found in Vienna a few years ago by M. Moreau-Nélaton and presented to the Gallery by that active and patriotic institution, the Société des Amis du Louvre. Pierre Quthe was a notable burgher and apothecary of Paris, who owned one of the finest gardens in that city. He was an intimate friend and neighbour of François Clouet in the rue St. Avoye. In the Louvre painting, which bears in the left-hand bottom corner the inscription

FR. IANETII OPVS E. QUTTO AMICO SINGVLARI AETATIS SVE XLIII 1562

he is depicted three-quarter-length life size, dressed in a doublet of black velvet with lace insertions, with a herbarium. The picture hangs at present on a screen in Gallery XV.

Another unquestionably authentic work is the charming _Portrait of Elizabeth of Austria, Wife of Charles IX._ (No. 130), of which a preparatory study in chalk, dated 1571, is to be found in the Paris Print Cabinet. The face is drawn and modelled with rare delicacy, and every detail of the richly jewelled gold brocade costume is rendered with faultless and miniature-like precision.

Yet another precious little picture from the same hand is the small three-quarter-length _Portrait of Charles IX., King of France_ (No. 128), which is a reduced replica of the signed life-size version in the Vienna Museum. Both pictures were originally in Vienna, whence they were removed by Napoleon in 1809, but only the larger picture was taken back to the Austrian capital in 1815.

The _Portrait of Claude de Beaune_ (No. 133A) is possibly another, though not very important, work from the master’s own brush; but neither the _Portrait of François de Lorraine, Duc de Guise_ (No. 131), nor the _Portrait of Henri II., King of France_ (No. 129), are of sufficient merit to justify their attribution to François Clouet; whilst the portraits of _Charles IX._ (No. 132) and _Elizabeth of Austria_ (No. 133) are frankly admitted to be copies after originals by the master.

CORNEILLE DE LYON

François Clouet’s chief rival in royal favour was another Netherlander domiciled in France, who, from the city in which he spent the years of his greatest activity, has become known as Corneille de Lyon. He was apparently the head of a busy workshop at Lyons, from which were turned out large numbers of thinly painted, daintily touched-in three-quarter profile heads, executed almost transparently on a light ground. Although these portraits are now generally described under the generic name of Corneille de Lyon, only the best among them can be accepted as the master’s own handiwork. Room XI. at the Louvre contains several insignificant and badly repainted portraits of this type. They are of no importance, as they are only copies or studio productions. Corneille became naturalised in 1547, in which year he was appointed Painter to the King. He died about 1575.

THE SCHOOL OF FONTAINEBLEAU

The death of Perréal and Bourdichon a few years after the accession of François I. had left France without any artists of note, save the few foreign portrait painters employed by the Court. François I., an enthusiastic art lover, who had seen and admired the great Italian masters in their own country, spared no effort to attract the leading masters to France. We have seen that he actually succeeded in securing the services of the aged Leonardo da Vinci, and that for a brief span Andrea del Sarto worked at his Court. When, about 1530, that art-loving king turned his attention to the decoration of his palace at Fontainebleau, there was not a single painter of French nationality, or artist living in France, who could have been entrusted with so formidable a task, and François I. was again forced to enlist the best Italian painters available for the purpose. Having first engaged Pellegrino and other third-rate artists, he succeeded, in 1531, in inducing the Florentine Rosso to undertake the execution and supervision of the decorative work at Fontainebleau; and in the following year the Bolognese Primaticcio entered his service. Both belong to the Italian eclectic schools, and only concern us here in so far as their example led to the founding of what has been called the “School of Fontainebleau,” which was really an offshoot of the Italian eclectic school.