Who was Francois Clouet

Catherine & Henri II. :François Clouet, British Museum, London.

François Clouet was taught by his father Jean Clouet. Jean Clouet was taught portraiture in Amboise by Leonardo da Vinci.

François opened the first chapter in the history of of modern painting in France. His death ended the glorious days of portrait painting in France.

François Clouet (1510-1572) was the first French Renaissance painter. His father, Court Painter Jean Clouet, was the bridge between the old French mediaeval two dimensional style of portrait painting and the new Italian Renaissance style. Jean Clouet was taught how to make faces three dimensional by none other than Leonardo da Vinci whose Mona Lisa was on permanent display in his Clos Lucé studio.

Château du Clos Lucé

Jean’s son François, probably named in honour of the king, learned his craft at his father’s knee. His patrons were, like those of his father, the king and his court. Because of his true to life portraits, faces of some of the French Royal Family are as familiar to us as those of our own family. His sitters included Henry II, his wife Catherine de Medici, their children and their daughter-in-law, Mary Queen of Scots.

Catherine de Medici was a huge admirer of both father and son. She particularly liked their pencil portraits. She owned those by Jean Clouet and asked François to complete her collection by drawing her children. She had had ten, of whom seven survived.

François Clouet was born in Tours and lived there for the first eighteen years of his life. Tours was an important centre for the arts. His grandfather, a goldsmith and his parents were part of the flourishing artistic community. Painters, sculptors, tapestry-makers, engravers and jewellers all worked for the Court in Tours. Although the Court was in Tours, the Royal family home was Château Amboise.

In 1528 it came as a shock to Amboisiens to learn that the King decided to move to Paris. They looked upon François, who arrived there when he was a boy of six, as their own. Amboise had been his home for twenty-five years. Ever since the Court was established in Tours in the 1400s, the royal family had always preferred the Loire Valley to Paris.

Why did the King leave? Had something happened? Yes. Lots. All at the same time. Today we would say he had a mid-life crisis (he was thirty-four) but it was far more serious.

His most hated rival Charles V took Milan which had been a French dependency for twenty-five years. The king was devastated.

The King railed at his Commanding Officer calling him an incompetent fool. He was told the Swiss mercenaries had deserted Milan because their pay was in arrears. Although he had written many times no money arrived from France to pay them.

The fault lay with Louise of Savoy, the king’s mother. She had not sent the money. She had let France down. Badly. The King turned on her in rage. The bust up, the breaking of their close mother son bond, affected him deeply.

Upset, furious, determined to get Milan back, the King took his army to Italy but was badly defeated at the Battle of Pavia in 1525. Captured by the forces of Charles V, he was told he would be held hostage until he agreed to give up all claims to Milan, recognised the independence of Burgundy (part of France) and paid a huge ransom.

The King then did something which shocked Amboise and the whole of France. He offered his small sons the dauphin François, eight, who was born and christened at Château Amboise and Henry, seven, as hostages instead.

Once freed and back home the King said he would not honour the agreement with Charles because it was made under duress. This resulted in the children living under even worse conditions. They were scarred for life. They might never have been let go if it were not for the King’s mother and his sister who went round with the begging bowl to raise the ransom. His mother also did what the King refused to do. She negotiated a deal with Charles V. When the boys came home to Amboise they were traumatised, almost mute and could not speak French.

The King had been humiliated before the whole of Europe. The Court of the King’s youth when it basked in the glory of his victory in Marignano in 1515 was gone. His charmed life with an adoring Court was over. In 1515 he was twenty-one, very tall, striking looking and daring. A proud France adored him. He was now a king in his mid-thirties who had been defeated in battle by France’s enemy. What he needed was a project to take his mind off the horror of it all.

Château Chambord

He threw himself into re-building Château Chambord into a massive public edifice, a jaw dropping phenomenon, a show piece of money and power. This self-indulgent folly of a self-indulgent king was meant to impress Charles V.

The King then rebuilt Château Fontainebleau, turning it into an art gallery, recruiting the best artists he could tempt. The banks of the Loire scarcely saw him again.

When the King left Amboise, Jean Clouet, his Court Painter, went with him. The family moved from Tours to Paris when François Clouet was eighteen. He worked with his father at Fontainebleau until Jean Clouet died.

François Clouet succeeded his father as Court painter to François I. He continued in the post under the reigns of Henry II, François II, and Charles IX.

Post by Pamela, Photography by Mark