Patrick Bade
The Splendours of the French Renaissance
Patrick Bade - The Splendours of the French Renaissance
- Today is the delayed talk on the French Renaissance, and the image you see on the screen, it’s actually a 19th century picture by an Ingres, and it depicts the death of Leonardo da Vinci in France in 1519, and according to Vasari, Francois premiere, Francis I of France had invited Leonardo to France. By this time, Leonardo had suffered a stroke and he was no longer painting, so it was more for his mind, for his conversation that Francis I invited Leonardo, and according to Vasari, the king was with Leonardo when he died in the chateau in Amboise, and actually held him in his arms as he died, and that’s what we see here. Now, Francis I is the French king who’s most associated with the Renaissance, and in addition to Leonardo, he invited many other distinguished Italian artists, Andrea del Sarto, Benvenuto Cellini, Rosso Fiorentino, Primaticcio, and so on to France, and they all had a great impact on the development of French art. But in fact, the first contacts with the Italian Renaissance date back a half century before Francis I to the reign of Charles VII, this is Charles VII on the left hand side, and to a French artist called Jean Fouquet, who went to Italy in the 1440s. This is his self-portrait on the right hand side, and his portrait of Charles VII on the left. His technique was basically a northern one, a Flemish inspired one, but while in Italy, he learned the secrets of the new Italian art of perspective, and we see that very clearly in the left panel here.
This is a diptych, it’s known as the “Melun Diptych” by Jean Fouquet, although the two panels are now separated, one is in Berlin and one is in Antwerp, and it shows Charles VII’s chancellor, a man called Etienne Chevalier being presented to the Virgin by his patron saint. His patron saint is St. Stephen, he’s identifiable. He was stoned to death. He was believed to be the first Christian martyr, and so his attribute is a stone, which you can see him balancing on a Bible in his hand, and he is, the chancellor, Chevalier is praying reverently to a very sexy looking virgin. This is not a very virginal looking virgin, in fact, it’s a portrait of Charles VII’s mistress, Agnes Sorel. She has quite an important place in French history, because she’s the first of what were called , the official mistresses. Pretty well every later French king, of course, some of ‘em very famous, I know Trudy’s talking about Diane de Poitiers and so on, and Madame de Montespan, and later Madame de Pompadour, these were all , the officially recognised mistress of the king. Agnes Sorel, she was very young when she became the king’s mistress, and she was famed for the perfection of her breasts, and wearing very, very low cut dresses that even revealed the nipples. So this, you’d think, is a mildly blasphemous depiction of the royal mistress as a not very virginal Virgin Mary. I mentioned that his technique is actually more of a northern one than Italian one, and he’s also very skilled as a manuscript illuminator.
This is a small manuscript, and it shows the Virgin in glory, but what is really striking, I think, about this image is the juxtaposition of very up-to-the-minute Italian architecture and decoration on the left hand side of the image, and this Gothic church portal around the Virgin, so two completely different styles in the same picture. And in fact, as I indicated in my last talk to you about French Gothic, there’s a very long overlap between Gothic and Renaissance in France, really lasting over 100 years, from the middle of the 15th century to the second half of the 16th century. This is another small painting by Jean Fouquet. This time it’s an annunciation to the Virgin of her pregnancy with Jesus. This is a much more Italianate setting, completely Italianate with, you can see the new toy, perspective, very effectively used here, and of course, these 15th century Italian artists, in order to show off their knowledge of perspective, they loved to have a sort of chessboard floor with the lines receding towards a vanishing point that give you the illusion that you could actually walk into the space of the picture. So all that is very Italian, and looking up into the ceiling, again the coffering of the ceiling allows a very effective depiction of recession into space. But if we look at the Virgin herself, and particularly the folds of her beautiful blue robe, which don’t really give much sense of the body underneath as an Italian artist would do, as say, Masaccio would do, and they have those curious angular folds, which are actually typical of northern painting rather than an Italian painting.
Now, Jean Fouquet also illustrated the Josephus history of the Jews. This is one of a series of manuscript illuminations illustrating Josephus, his idea. Of course, he’d never been to the Holy Land. He had no idea what Israel or Palestine looked like. This is a very lush, rather northern European landscape that he gives. And this is his idea, this is his depiction of the construction of Solomon’s temple. After my last lecture, lots of people were asking how were these enormous buildings constructed? And in fact, this picture gives us quite a lot of information about it, doesn’t it? The winches, the scaffolding, the cutting of the stone on the ground, but this is Solomon’s Temple, of course, as a late Gothic, a flamboyant Gothic piece of architecture, and this is also a very fascinating document. This is illustrating the incident when the Roman General Pompey blasphemously entered the Temple of Solomon, so this is Fouquet’s idea of what the Temple of Solomon looked like inside. Of course, what he does know about, he’s got from the Bible, are the so-called Solomonic columns, the twisted columns that we see in the background. So anyway, leaping forward and back to Francis I, Francois premiere, a painting attributed to Jean Clouet on the left hand side, and a portrait of him by Titian on the right hand side.
In fact, Titian never met Francis I, so Titian’s portrait of Francis was based on another portrait where you see, like most portraits of Francis I, he’s turned sideways to show off his magnificent nose. He had this enormous nose. Of course, being king, everybody from day one said, “Oh, your majesty, you have the biggest nose in France. You must be so proud it’s so magnificent,” and he certainly was very proud of his nose, since he’s always turning sideways to show it off, and in France, he’s sometimes known as , the king big nose. This is at the Chateau of Chambord, which was begun, it’s in the Loire region, where so many of the great Renaissance chateaus are, and it was begun in 1519. It’s an absolutely stunning, amazing, amazing building, breathtaking building, surely one of the most magnificent chateaus in Europe. It’s often been claimed that it was that Leonardo DaVinci had a hand in the design. It’s possible, although it seems to me that the most spectacular feature of this chateau, which is the roof line that’s bristling with turrets and chimneys is not at all Italianate, it’s very northern. It’s still a rather, even though all the detail is Italianate and classical, the overall effect is actually rather Gothic. The one feature of the chateau which I think can be convincingly attributed to Leonardo is this amazing staircase.
I can’t imagine that there was any artist in France in 1519 capable of designing something like this, and it speaks of Leonardo and his fascination with complex geometrical patterns and shapes. Leonardo also, he arrived in France with a large portion, I mean, of his paintings. Of course, there are only, I think 13 paintings by Leonardo surviving in the world, and there weren’t that many more in his lifetime. There are a couple we know that were destroyed, but he was a very slow worker and a great perfectionist, and of course, a number of those paintings that do survive are unfinished. But he brought paintings with him, including the first version of the “Madonna of the Rocks,” “The Virgin and Saint Anne,” “Saint John the Baptist,” and obviously, the “Mona Lisa,” and that’s why all those paintings now are in the Louvre. This, very strange, is a portrait of Francis I. Again you can easily recognise him by his rather distinctive nose, but he’s been painted as St. John the Baptist. I’m not sure it was a terribly appropriate image for him. The sheep, of course, is the normal attributes of John the Baptist, and the cross. The parrot is a symbol of his eloquence, and this is a painting possibly by Leonardo, certainly from his studio, probably largely painted by Leonardo’s assistants that’s also in the royal collection, and it was in the French royal collection.
It’s now in the Louvre, and it’s very clear that it’s the starting point for Clouet’s portrait of Francis I. And this is a portrait of the king’s cousin, Marguerite of Angouleme, also attributed to Jean Clouet, I’ll talk a bit more about Clouet later on, that I think has an obvious debt to the “Mona Lisa,” which you see on the left. Now, it’s extraordinary to think that that fabulous chateau, let’s go back to it, 'cause it certainly seems, can I go back to it? This amazing castle, that in 32 years of Francis I’s reign, he said he spent precisely six weeks in this amazing castle, so it was a huge effort and expense for not much pleasure for him, and in the end, it was a hunting chateau. But of course, because the area was associated with royalty and with royal hunts, there were many other great families, other great noble families built a chateau in the Loire region, and a number of, this is Azay-le-Rideau, small, quite small really, but absolutely exquisite. This is again Azay-le-Rideau with some of the steep roofs and the very prominent chimneys again. This is Chenonceau, this was built for Diane de Poitiers, and I imagine Trudy will show you this, and maybe tell you a little bit more about it. It’s by the architect Philibert de l'Orme, and it was unfortunately, when Diane de Poitiers’ lover, King Henry II was killed in a jousting accident, she was forced to hand this over to the Queen, Catherine de’ Medici.
And the last of these chateaus I’m going to show you is Villandry, and here, the interesting feature, of course, is the garden, which is in fact, an early 20th century reconstruction of the original garden, but it gives you a very good idea of what a French Renaissance garden looked like with all these very, very different, of course, from any garden that you’d find in England, the so-called English garden, informal gardens. This is extremely formal, and based on very elaborate geometrical designs that are reflected in the ceilings of 16th century chateaus. So this is actually a ceiling at the Chateau Fontainebleau, where you can see similar complex geometrical patterns. Here is Fontainebleau. This was the most important and ambitious of the castles initiated by Francis I, and he started it in 1528, and it was continued enlarged by his successors until the end of the 16th century under Henri IV, Henry the IV, who I’ll be talking about tomorrow. It’s, I think, an absolutely magical, marvellous castle. I so much prefer it to Versailles to visit, and it’s not quite so mobbed by tourists, so it’s easy to get to from Paris. I strongly recommend it to you. Here is another view of this last rambling chateau, and it has had later additions under Napoleon I and Louis-Napoleon. Here is the entrance leg with the great horseshoe staircase leading up.
The most important feature of Fontainebleau is the grand gallery. This is one of the most magnificent, impressive rooms to be found anywhere in Europe, and it’s the creation of two Italians, Rosso Fiorentino and Primaticcio, Primaticcio largely responsible I think for the sculptures, and it survives in pretty good condition. You see it’s an enormous length, and an overwhelming richness in the combination of stucco work and painting with mythological themes, and this is where we find, for the first time significantly, the decorative feature of strapwork. Strapwork, where can I point it out here? Strapwork is decoration that looks like it’s cut from straps of leather. Yeah, you can see some of it here underneath the central panel. It was a great coup for Francis I to be able to import the most celebrated goldsmith of the Renaissance, Benvenuto Cellini, and in fact, this very famous object, which is the most famous surviving object by Benvenuto Cellini. It’s a salt cellar made out of solid gold and enamelled with mythological figures, Poseidon and Demeter, representing earth and water. It’s about 26 centimetres high, an extraordinary, extraordinary object. Of course, the terrible fate of goldsmiths is that their work tends to get melted down in times of war and revolution, so the vast bulk of Cellini’s work has not survived. This is the most important single object, and it’s actually not in France.
It’s not in the Louvre where you would expect to be. It’s probably a very good thing it didn’t stay in France, ‘cause then it certainly would’ve got melted down in the French Revolution. It was actually given us a diplomatic gift at the time of Charles XIII, one of the sons of Catherine de’ Medici, who married a Habsburg princess, so it was, as I said, a diplomatic gift, and it’s now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Cellini is a very fascinating character, robust character. I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a movie, or probably has been a movie, really, I’m sure, but a more recent blockbuster movie. There’s certainly material for it in his life. He was a very robust character, constantly in trouble with the law for brawling, on at least two occasions for murder, and for multiple occasions for sodomy with both men and women, so he was a pretty loose kind of character, really constantly getting into trouble. This, the influence on him I think is very clearly from Michelangelo, his somewhat awkwardly reclining figures. Recall reclining figures on the Medici tombs in Florence. Here’s a detail of this exquisite and quite extraordinary object. This is another rare surviving work of Cellini that’s in the Castle of Anet, which was a castle belonging to Diane de Poitiers, so this shows goddess Diana, goddess of hunting, and is a reference, clearly, to Diane de Poitiers, and this also now in the Louvre, which was in the gardens of the Castle of Anet, which some people attribute to Cellini, but we’re not sure.
Other people, it was certainly a very fine piece, and it might be by the French sculptor Jean Goujon, who I’ll be talking about in a minute or so. Now, this is Rosso Fiorentino. He was a pupil of Andrea del Sarto, and he was working in Rome, and he’s one of those artists who fled from Rome in 1527 when Rome was sacked by imperial troops and he came to France, and he remained in France for 10 years, and according to Vasari, he committed suicide, but we don’t know that for sure. But there’s certainly, I would say, evidence of deep neurosis in this work. This is not in France. This is his most famous work, and it’s in the Italian, the Cathedral of Volterra, but crazy, it’s simply crazy isn’t it? These sort of, what’s he on? These sort of acid, shrill colours, agitated gestures, it’s the mannerist style with a couple, and taken to an extreme. In France, his most important panel painting, painted in the 10 years he was in France is another deposition. I wonder if the subject had a particular appeal for him of the dead Christ. Here are details, again, these very extraordinary, day glow colours that were favoured by mannerist artists. This is an example of what is called the second Fontainebleau school. There are a whole group of paintings which are largely anonymous. We don’t know who painted them. They’re, I suppose, minor artists who are very influenced by Italian Renaissance artists that were in the royal collection, and in particular, a series of very enigmatic female nudes, which, what is going on? What the hell is going on here?
Actually that seems to be dialling a nipple on the right hand side. Most of these paintings have been associated with various royal mistresses, in particular, Diane de Poitiers, here is goddess Diana, which is clearly an idealised version of Diane de Poitiers, and here is a drawing attributed to Jean Clouet of her that I think gives you more of the reality of what she actually looked like. Of course, she was, a lot of people found it strange that as to Henry II, she was actually old enough to be his mother, and certainly, Catherine de Medici was kind of enraged and infuriated that her husband was unfaithful to her with a woman old enough to be his mother, and apparently, she had holes bored in the bedroom so she could spy what they were doing, ‘cause she wanted to learn a thing or two from Diane de Poitiers. This is again thought to be an idealised portrait of Diane de Poitiers. Of course, a lot of mannerist paintings are full of very arcane symbolism, and it’s very difficult for us to figure out exactly what is going on, and you’ll have noticed that in quite a few of these pictures, this one, you have this feature of seeing through into an interior space in the background with something strange going on in the space in the background. This is another painting thought by some to be Diane de Poitiers. This is a painting in the British royal collection by Giulio Romano, which is traditionally said to be a portrait of Isabella d'Este, but may not be, but again, you have this rather strange space in the background, and you’ve got a woman rummaging around in a , which seems to show a knowledge of this very famous Venus by Titian, “Venus of Urbino.”
Now, the name Jean Clouet has come up several times, and he was a very, well, we think he painted all these pictures. His name is attached to great many portraits of this period. In a way, he gives us a collective portrait of the French Renaissance, as Holbein does in England over the period of Henry XIII. But he’s an elusive character, and so we have all these portraits that seem to be by one artist, although his brother was an artist and his son was an artist, so we don’t know which for sure of the three painted many of these pictures. There’s a whole group of these pictures that are kind of collectively attributed to Clouet, whichever one. This is Mary Queen of Scots on the left hand side, the young Mary Queen of Scots when she was married to Francis II, a very short lived, he only reigned for one year from 1559 to 1560, and there he is, also probably by Clouet on the right hand. You can see a certain similarity with the work of Holbein, and they’re wonderful pictures, they’re very beautiful, but I would say without the kind of incisive truthfulness of the portraits of Holbein. Two more drawings that are attributed to Jean Clouet. The most important French sculptor of the 16th century is Jean Goujon. These Caryatides were, they’re in the Louvre. They were made for the Palace of the Louvre, and they date from around 1550, and he was appointed sculptor to King Henry II but unfortunately, he was Huguenot, and this is the time of the French Wars of Religion.
He was, for a while, actually imprisoned. He escaped, and then he fled from France. These are relief sculptures on the facade of a 16th century palace that is now part of the Musee Carnavalet in Paris. Greatly recommend that to you on your next visit to Paris. It’s the museum of the history of Paris, a favourite museum of Trudy’s. It’s been closed for about five years. She keeps on saying to me, “When is the Carnavalet going to reopen?” Well, it has reopened, and they’ve done a wonderful job on refurbishing it. This is Goujon’s most famous and most influential work. It’s the Fontaine des Innocents, which is by the Halles in the centre of Paris. I say this is by him. In fact, what you see today is a reproduction or a reconstruction, and the famous reliefs, which show river goddesses or nymphs or sources of rivers, the originals are now in the Louvre, so they’re reproductions you see on the structure at the Halles. Beautiful, very, I mean, in some ways, absolutely mannerist, aren’t they? With the small heads on elongated bodies, and these wonderful, swaying, suave disco dancing poses or contrapposto, the twists in the body, and I particularly love the way the drapery, it clings to the body, it shows the body underneath, but it also suggests water and the flow of water. So this structure was in Paris for all to see from the 16th century until the 19th century, and had a tremendous influence. I’m sure lots of you have read the novel “Perfume” by Patrick Suskind, and the first scene in that novel takes place at the foot of the Fontaine des Innocents, actually in the 18th century, and it continued to have tremendous impact on French artists.
This is Ingres’ painting “La Source,” which is very clearly directly based on Jean Gougot, and had great influence on the decorative arts. This is actually an umbrella stand in my flat just behind me. I picked it up at the flea market, and as you can see, it’s all figures on it, on the four sides, directly taken from Fontaine des Innocents. It’s one of those images like in a different way, say Munch’s “Scream,” which it’s like a, it just has, it’s a constant echoes down the ages, and you can see there’s a perfume advertisement on the left hand side, and a French coin of 1996 on the right. And this is a drawing from the 1930s, again a flea market find for me by an artist called Albert Decaris, and these, I assume, are sketches for mural decorations, and particularly one in the centre, I think you can see is based on “La Source.” Now I want to go on to talk a little bit about interiors and furniture. This is a fireplace in the Chateau of Ecouen, that’s now the Museum of the Renaissance, again somewhere that’s easily accessible from Paris. It’s a vast 16th century chateau, and there is these very long of rooms, long, you know, rows of rooms that lead one into another, and each room has a very grand fireplace, and the fireplace will be the most spectacular feature in the room. There is a fantastic collection of these fireplaces with figurative decoration that, it might be sculpted, it might be stone, it might be stucco, or it might be, as in this case, it might be painted.
Again, another fireplace from the Chateau of Ecouen, so this style of French decorative arts, which originates actually at Fontainebleau, spreads throughout Europe, so very often, the Italian Renaissance, when it reaches the Netherlands, England, Scandinavia, Spain, it’s often not directly from Italy, it’s via France, and it’s via Fontainebleau, and it’s carried around Europe by itinerant craftsmen, and also by by pattern books. This is a fireplace in Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire, which I used to visit very often with my students when I was at Christie’s. It’s the most delightful, rambling mediaeval house, and it’s got a number of these elaborate 16th century fireplaces. Some are very crude and very provincial, and obviously made by local craftsmen. This one really stands out from all the others because it’s of the delicacy and the sophistication of the workmanship, so I’m sure that this was carried out by French craftsman who’d been imported to England for the purpose. And as I said, it spreads all over Europe, even as far as Sweden, this style, by the end of the 16th, early 17th century.
This is, I’ve just been in Stockholm. The picture on the right is actually my family gathered together to celebrate the 90th birthday, I’m in there somewhere, but I can’t see myself, of my very wonderful stepmother, and we celebrated her birthday in this hunting lodge, an early 17th century hunting lodge outside of Stockholm. And in the room where we’re all gathered, you can see in the background, there is this wonderful fireplace, which is basically a very crude provincial version of the kind of fireplace you’d find in a French Renaissance chateau. Here it is closer up, and you can see. They’re delightful, but rather primitive, and they’re strapwork, they’re a very primitive version of the strapwork. Can you see in the frieze along the top? This decoration, it looks like it’s cut out of the leather straps. This is right behind me, you can probably see it there. This is all, this is probably the same date as that Swedish fireplace, but this is Hispanic. It’s either Spanish or Portuguese. I picked it up at the flea markets, I think last, last year, a wonderful place, which is, there’s a Sephardi family of craftsman who specialise in restoring 16th, 17th, and 18th century frames, and I bought this from them, and as you can see, it’s really still very much the same, and again you can see strapwork on the side of this figure on the right hand side. And so french furniture of the 16th century, it can be made of oak, or it can be made of walnut. This is before exotic woods like mahogany were imported into Europe.
They tend to be architectural in design with a lot of very elaborate sculptural decoration on them. And I would say a typical feature of these late Renaissance pieces of furniture is a very strong separation of parts. When we get onto the baroque, tomorrow night, actually, I’ll be looking at baroque, there’s more of a sense of unity or flow of one part into another. Here, a more very typical example with these rather Michelangelesque figures perched rather uncomfortably at the top, and the Solomonic columns here. Ceramics, the most famous French ceramicist of the Renaissance period is Bernard Palissy, born around 1510, dies around 1590, very remarkable character. He was an engineer, a scientist, inventor. He spent a great deal of his life in a fruitless search to find the secret of true porcelain, true porcelain, white gold. The Chinese and the Japanese at this point, were the only people who really understood how to make porcelains. It’s not till the 18th century that anybody in Europe really understands how to make true porcelain, so he never found it, but he tried. He experimented with other techniques. This a lead glazed earthenware, and what he is mainly famous for and associated with are these very extraordinary dishes where he seems to have taken moulds from actual creatures, reptiles and fish and so on, so these must, of course, you wouldn’t serve your soup in one of these. You’d get a bit of a shock if you did.
So I think these were made for display to go on a buffet, a piece of furniture for the display of either precious metalwork or precious ceramics. Here’s another example of Palissy, wonderful things, but he was very, very much imitated at the time, and also a warning, hugely, and imitated in a very sophisticated way in the 19th century, so it’s a notoriously difficult area for collectors. You can’t really be sure that what you’ve got is original. This is an example of enamelware, enamel where you’ve got glass that’s fused with a metal base. There’s a tradition of this in France going right back to the Middle Ages in Limoges, but again, the most famous French craftsman in the 16th century making this kind of thing is a man called Leonard Limousin, who’s born around 1505. This kind of decoration, which is very Italianate, is called grotesque, grotesque because this kind of decoration was first seen on the walls and ceilings of the Golden House of Nero when it was excavated in the 1480s, and by that time, the house had come buried, so the rooms were underground and in grotto, so nothing to do, this fanciful decoration with classical elements actually has nothing to do with the modern use of the term grotesque. This is also an incredible sophistication, really, of this strapwork decoration around the outside, and the enamel plaques, and this is a portrait of Henri II, lover of Diane de Poitiers, and here is armour that was made for him. Of course, this was his undoing.
As I’m sure you’ve heard or will hear from Trudy, he died in a jousting accident when he was pierced in the eye, but this absolutely staggering piece of armour like this, of course, it’s not really, it’s not made for battle, wouldn’t be very good for battle, but it’s made for show, and huge amounts of money were invested by monarchs and princes in the 16th century for this kind of very showy armour, again with very typical elaborate Renaissance decoration all over it. The 16th century, well, I’ve already mentioned Benvenuto Cellini, the most famous goldsmith of all time. I should have mentioned, of course, also that he’s famous, not just for his work, he’s famous for his autobiography, which tells us, you know, a lot about how he worked, and the story of the making of the salt cellar, and the other great work by him, the Perseus in Florence makes very gripping and fascinating reading. But so this is, the 16th century is probably the greatest age of metalwork, and this shows a goldsmith’s workshop in the 16th century. A work of incredible sophistication and elaboration, this is a neff, so this is to sit in the middle of a dinner table and it’s in the form of a ship, and this is French, it’s made in Paris in the 1520s. And jewellery, it’s also a very great age of jewellery. This piece is in the Getty. It is called the Hercules pendant, and you can see it makes use of a baroque pearl to suggest the muscly body of Hercules, work of incredible delicacy and sophistication with combining gold enamelling and the baroque pearl. So by the 19th, there was a great revival of interest in the French Renaissance in the 19th, early to mid 19th century, and it became the style of choice for 19th century billionaires.
This is the country house of the Vanderbilts at Biltmore in America, rather amazing in the middle of America to come across this French Renaissance chateau. This is Waddesdon in Oxfordshire, so the Rothschilds become particularly, so it is sometimes the taste for collecting this, it’s called , the Rothschild taste. Only the Rothschilds were really, and Vanderbilts and so on were wealthy enough to collect this kind of stuff in the 19th century that went for huge sums of money. But again, this is the Waddesdon Bequest, which is one of the most important collections of Renaissance decorative arts, and particularly metalwork, in the world. This was given by the Rothschilds to the British Museum in 1897, but a word of warning, 19th century craftsman were amazingly, amazingly skillful. They could do pretty well anything that the original Renaissance craftsman could do, so even this at the Waddesdon Bequest, is chockablocked with fakes. This pendant, for instance, which is part of the Waddesdon Bequest, it actually has been discovered that it dates from the early 19th century. So it’s a very, very tricky area for collectors. And this is by a 19th century jeweller called Reinhold Vasters. His work is in the collections of great museums around the world, originally enter these collections as 16th century works, but after he died, a whole archive of his working drawings were discovered that certainly had curators around the world very red-faced in embarrassment when they realised that these works were from the late 19th century and not from the 16th century. So that is it, and I’m going to see what questions we have and comments.
Q&A and Comments:
My haircut, oh dear, that’s goes back a bit, Wilma. I only get my haircut every three months.
Q: Who would’ve commissioned the Fouquet Virgin mistress painting?
A: Well, a pope might have done, when you consider some of the popes that are Renaissance. No, I think it was commissioned by the Chancellor, and he was more interested probably in currying favour with the king, so he probably thought that would please the king. It was a compliment to the king to have his mistress depicted as the Virgin Mary.
Q: Have I read Walter Isaacson’s book, “Leonardo Da Vinci”?
A: No, I haven’t, actually, but certainly, Florence in the 15th century is a very, very fascinating period.
Do you know, Marjorie, thank you very much, but I’m really an urban person. In my 34 years at Christie’s, my days of absolute dread were having to guide English country houses, and when we came to Paris, I had a rebellion when my boss wanted me to do the chateau, I said, “Look, I’m in Paris. I want to talk about Paris. I don’t want to talk about country life or chateau.”
Q: Robin, is not the probable Leonardo design circas also a feature of the Francis Chateau?
A: Do you know, I haven’t, confession time, I haven’t been to the Chateau du Vau, I don’t know. There is, of course, the very famous, the wonderful Cellini’s autobiography was first published in the 19th century, and of course, he became an instant cult hero to the romantics, and inspired Belisario’s wonderful opera.
Q: Yes, did Fouquet read Josephus in the original read?
A: I think that’s highly unlikely. Who knows whether Fouquet could even read or write, but I think if he could, he would’ve read it in Latin, the Latin translation rather than the Greek.
The first enlarged chateau, that was Chambord. It’s on the list that was sent you this morning.
Well, thank you for spotting me, Yoland. I’ll have another look.
Q: What is the art of splitting marble to make patterns of Santa Sophia that were often seen?
A: I really don’t know about the technique of that, but I’m sure it’s a very tricky business. Marble is such a friable substance. Thank you for your kind comments.
Yeah, Fontainebleau is, I really do, Fontainebleau is fabulous, and it’s near enough to Paris to make me feel safe.
Q: Were the 19th century fakes really made as fakes, or just copies?
A: I think very often, they were made as fakes because, and the Wallace collection is full of fakes as well. You know, these clever artisans, I’ve got nothing against it. You know, the fakes are often so wonderful, and of course, the people like the Marquess of Hertford who put together the Wallace collection that these rich English me lords, and the Jewish bankers and so on, I’m afraid that the shysters flocked to them to try and get money out of them.
Q: Was Faberge influenced?
A: Yes, I think he was. I mean, to me, there are two really great ages of jewellery. There is the 16th century, and then of course, the Belle Epoque. I’m not a particular fan of Faberge, but actually, I was just with a group. Some people may be listening, ‘cause they were mainly a group of lockdown. Came to Paris last week, went to the Museum of Decorative Arts, and we looked at the jewellery of the Belle Epoque. We looked at Lalique, and another Fouquet, not related, and they certainly, in that period, they were influenced by the Renaissance jewellery.
Thank you for your concern. Viollet-le-Duc, I’ll probably get to him, Viollet-le-Duc when we get to the 19th century, 'cause Viollet-le-Duc, it would be more relevant to mention him my last lecture, 'cause he is Gothic revival.
Q: Is there a Cellini salt cellar in the Metropolitan?
A: I don’t think so. The Cellini salt cellar is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum. All the names of the chateaus are on the list that Lauren will have sent you this morning.
Q: Not the procedure, but the name of what art form is called?
A: I’m sorry, I don’t understand that question.
And jousting, I don’t know actually whether it was banned after the death of Henry II.
Thank you all for your nice comments, and look forward to seeing as many of you as possible tomorrow for the age of Louis XIV. We’ll move on a century to the 17th century.