A Snapshot in Time: Clouet Portraits on Display at Azay-le-Rideau

Like any author, I love it when characters I have written about come into the public eye. Artist duo Jean and François Clouet, featured in my second novel, worked as portraitists at the courts of François I, Henri II, and Henri's sons. I posted previously about their work here and here. This summer, the Clouets take the spotlight in an exposition of Renaissance portraiture at the Château d'Azay-le-Rideau in the Loire Valley.

A notable group of thirty-six French Renaissance portraits are on display at the château through September 19, 2021. The collection demonstrates the unique formula developed by Jean Clouet (c. 1485-c. 1541) and his son François (c. 1505-1572) over the course of their long careers. Working in modest dimensions against a neutral background at three-quarters view, the Clouets paired their truthfulness to the sitter's physical traits with an acute expression of psychology. Their exquisitely rendered portraits capture the personalities as well as the appearances of the French Renaissance's most compelling figures. Taken as a whole, the hundreds of chalk sketches and formal paintings the two Clouets produced provide a fascinating "who's who" of nearly a century's worth of French nobility.

In addition to presenting the Clouets and the individuals they painted, the exposition at Azay-le-Rideau explores the workings of a Renaissance portrait studio and the diplomatic, dynastic, and historical uses of portraits during the era. "Le retour des portraits de la Renaissance" is an exhibit not to miss if you're in the area before mid-September. Armchair travelers like me can enjoy scribeaccroupi's informative video, narrated by Mathieu Deldicque, curator of the Musée Condé: 

I can only imagine how awed contemporaries were at the Clouets' ability to capture their subjects so vividly on paper and canvas long before the advent of photography.

An Illustrated Who's Who

Portrait albums--bound collections of chalk portraits--became all the rage at the French court in the sixteenth century. Courtiers used the albums for entertainment, making a game of guessing sitters'  identities or composing epigrams and tags to accompany the pictures. They commissioned albums as gifts, or used them for diplomatic purposes.

Jean Clouet and his son François, portraitists who worked at the French court from the 1520's through the 1560's, were extraordinarily skilled at capturing likenesses on paper. Their precise, detailed portraits of hundreds of French nobles provide an intriguing and realistic record of physiognomy and fashion in an age that long predated photography. (You can browse Clouet portraits at the Réunions des Musées nationaux website.)

Today I created an album of my own, gathering portraits of my novel's characters on a Pinterest board. All the portraits are contemporaneous with the action of the novel, set in 1539-40. Many were sketched by Jean and François themselves, or by other artists who feature in the novel with them. For the novel's few fictional characters, I selected anonymous portraits of individuals who correspond to my mental image of the characters. It was great fun to assemble, in one place, a visual representation of the people I've tried so hard to resurrect through words.

Here, for example, are the novel's three viewpoint characters:

Catherine, the artist's daughter

Anne d'Heilly, duchesse d'Étampes, the king's mistress

Faustine, an artist's model

Come check out the board and meet the rest of the cast! The novel is undergoing a final revision before going out on submission to editors.

Dining with the Dead

François I died of illness on March 31, 1547, but that didn't prevent his courtiers from dining with him ever again. His meals were served to his effigy, as if he were still alive, for eleven days as part of an elaborate funeral ceremony rife with symbolic meaning.

François was not buried until May 22, as his successor, Henri II, wanted to combine his father's funeral with those of the king's two sons who had predeceased him and whose bodies had to be transported to Paris. This gap allowed for an elaborate ceremony to unfold.

Immediately after François's death, court painter François Clouet arrived to cast the king's death mask and to take measurements for his effigy. During the two weeks it took to fashion the effigy, the king's heart and entrails were removed and buried at the priory of Haut-Bruyère, a few miles from Rambouillet. His body was embalmed and taken to the palace of the cardinal-bishop of Paris at Saint-Cloud to await the arrival of the bodies of his sons.

The king's effigy was laid on a bed of state in the great hall at Saint-Cloud, which was hung with blue velvet and cloth of gold. Robert Knecht, in his excellent book The French Renaissance Court (Yale UP 2008), describes the scene thus:

[The effigy] wore the state robes, the collar of the Order of St. Michael, and the closed, imperial crown. On either side, on pillows, lay the sceptre and hand of justice. There was a canopy over the bed and, at its foot, a crucifix and holy-water stoop. Two heralds kept watch day and night, and offered the aspergillum to anyone wishing to sprinkle the effigy with holy water. Four candles provided the only illumination. Along the walls were benches for nobles and clerics, who attended the religious services and meals served to the effigy. These were the strangest parts of the ceremonial. For eleven days the king's meals were served as if he were still alive. His table was laid and the courses brought in and tasted. The napkin, used to wipe his hands, was presented by the steward to the most eminent person in attendance, and wine was served twice during each meal. At the end, grace was said by a cardinal. (p. 121; emphasis mine)

What was the purpose of these strange meals? Knecht's explanation is an interesting one. He links the meals to the French adage "le roi ne meurt jamais" ("the king never dies"), and explains that the monarch's dignitas, or authority, outlived his bodily presence. A king succeeded to the throne upon the death of his predecessor; he could exercise his authority from that moment, but he could not be seen to act as king until his predecessor had been buried. The effigy, along with the feigned meals, created the illusion that François was still alive pending his burial; the new king, Henri, effaced himself during that time so as not to destroy the illusion. As soon as the last meal was served on May 4, the effigy was removed and the salle d'honneur became a salle funèbre; black drapes replaced the blue and gold and the king's coffin was placed in the center of the hall. Henri appeared in public for the first time to sprinkle his father's body with holy water.

I can't help but wonder about the thoughts of the nobles and clerics who attended these pantomimed meals. Did they question the show, or were they respectful of its symbolism? Did they truly believe François still present? The entire ceremony (you can read Knecht's fascinating description of its various stages on pages 120-123) is a prime example of the extent to which the sixteenth-century mentality differed from modern sensibilities.