around 1480 -1541 · Brussels, Tours and Paris

Precise faces, sumptuous fabrics and sensitive preparatory drawings make Jean Clouet the great portraitist of the court of François I.

Jean Clouet was born around 1480 in the Burgundian Netherlands, probably in Brussels, and settled in France at the beginning of the 16th century. Documented in Tours then in Paris, he became a painter to François I and built with his studio a language of portraiture adapted to the Renaissance court. His method often starts from a drawing taken from life, with black stone and red chalk. The face is observed there with remarkable economy; the painting can then develop costume, jewelry, hands and background from this study. The portrait of François I, painted around 1530, gives the sovereign a new monumentality. The coat, the necklace of the order of Saint-Michel, the sword and the hanging fleurdelisée affirms the royal function, but the look and features remain individualized. Power is thus built through the balance between personal presence and dynastic signs. The Man with the Petrarch adopts a more intellectual register: the book kept by the model combines social identity, humanist culture and inner reflection. Guillaume Budé, great philologist and advisor to the king, embodies the same scholarly environment which accompanies the development of Greek letters and royal institutions. Guillaume Budé, great philologist and advisor to the king, embodies the same scholarly environment which accompanies the development of Greek letters and royal institutions. Marguerite de Navarre, great philologist and advisor to the king, embodies the same scholarly environment which accompanies the development of Greek letters and royal institutions. Marguerite de Navarre, great philologist and advisor to the king, embodies the same scholarly environment which accompanies the development of Greek letters and royal institutions. Marguerite de Navarre, great philologist and advisor to the king, embodies the same scholarly environment which accompanies the development of Greek letters and royal institutions. Marguerite de Navarre, great philologist and advisor to the king, embodies the same scholarly environment which accompanies the development of Greek letters and royal institutions. Marguerite de Navarre sometimes shared between Jean, his son François and the family workshop; the repetition of models and the use of drawings favor variants. The selection therefore avoids commercial duplicates of the same effigy and retains four complementary types. Died in 1541, Jean Clouet transmitted to François Clouet a practice which would have a lasting impact on French portraiture. The "Jean Clouet" selection notably compares François I, King of France and The Man with the Petrarch. His reading favors figures.

Clouet never separates the individual from his rank: the face gives presence, while the book, the fabric, the sword or the jewel construct the model's place at court.