Jean Clouet
Jean "Janet" Clouet | |
---|---|
oil painter | |
Movement | French Renaissance |
Patron(s) | Francis I of France |
Jean (or Janet) Clouet (1480–1541) was a miniaturist and painter who worked in France during the High Renaissance. He was the father of François Clouet.
Biography
The authentic presence of this artist at the French court is first mentioned in 1516, the second year of the reign of Francis I. By a deed of gift made by the king to the artist's son of his father's estate, which had escheated to the crown, we learn that he was not actually a Frenchman, and never naturalized. He is supposed to have been a native of the Low Countries, and probably his real name was Cloet. He lived several years in Tours, and there it was he met his wife, Jeanne Boucault,[1] who was the daughter of a jeweller.[2]
He is recorded as living in Tours in 1522, and there is a reference to his wife's residence in the same town in 1523. In that year Clouet was awarded the position of Groom of the Chamber by the King, with a stipend at first of 180 livres and later of 240. He and his wife were certainly living in Paris in 1529, probably in the neighborhood of the parish of Ste Innocente, in the cemetery of which they were buried. He stood godfather at a christening on 8 July 1540, but was no longer living in December 1541.[2]
His brother, known as Clouet de Navarre, was in the service of
Jean Clouet was undoubtedly a very skillful portrait painter, although no work in existence has been proved to be his. He painted a portrait of the mathematician
Seven miniature portraits in the Manuscript of the Gallic War in the Bibliothèque Nationale (13,429) are attributed to Janet with very strong probability, and to these may be added an eighth in the collection of
The collection of drawings preserved in France, and attributed to this artist and his school, comprises portraits of all the important persons of the time of Francis I. In one album of drawings the portraits are annotated by the king himself, and his merry reflections, stinging taunts or biting satires, add very largely to a proper understanding of the life of his time and court. Definite evidence, however, is still lacking to establish the attribution of the best of these drawings and of certain oil paintings to Jean Clouet.[2]
Notes
- ^ Catherine Grodecki, Documents du Mintier Central des Notaires de Paris: Histoire de l'Art au XVIe Siécle, 2 (Paris, 1986), p. 162 no. 734.
- ^ a b c d e f Chisholm 1911.
- ^ Catherine Grodecki, Documents du Mintier Central des Notaires de Paris: Histoire de l'Art au XVIe Siécle, 2 (Paris, 1986), p. 162 no. 736.
References
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Clouet, Jean". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Campbell, Gordon, ed. (2009). "Clouet [Cloet; Clauet; Clouwet; Clavet; Janet]". The Grove Encyclopedia of Northern Renaissance Art (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195334678.
- Cécile Scailliérez Francis I by Clouet, meeting des Musées Nationaux, 1996
- Dictionary Bénézit critic and documentary dictionary of painters, sculptors, designers and writers of all times and all countries, vol. 3 January 1999, p 13440. (ISBN 2700030133), p. 725
- Oxford Dictionary edited by Robert Maillard, Universal Dictionary of painting, vol. 2 Smeets Offset BV Weert (Netherlands), October 1975, p 3000. (ISBN 2850360023), p. 42-43
- (en) Peter Mellen, Jean Clouet, complete edition of the drawings, miniatures and paintings, London, New York, Phaidon Press, 1971, 262 p. (ISBN 0714814318)
- Peter Mellen (trans. Anne Roullet), Jean Clouet, Catalogue raisonné of the drawings, miniatures and paintings, Paris, Flammarion, 1971, p. 250
- Lawrence Gowing (Pref. Michel Laclotte) The paintings in the Louvre, Paris Editions Nathan, 1988, 686 p. (ISBN 2092847392), p. 204
External links
- Francis I Archived 2012-05-08 at the Wayback Machine Monumentality and miniature at Jean Clouet