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| François Clouet Anne de Piennes ca. 1560 drawing British Museum |
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| François Clouet René I, vicomte de Rohan before 1552 drawing British Museum |
According to curators at the British Museum, the first person in Europe to create a substantial collection of portrait drawings was Catherine de Medici (1519-1589). Not coincidentally, she was also the most powerful person in France during a substantial part of her life. In the 1560s she is known to have accumulated over 500 portrait drawings. Catherine's unique enthusiasm for these was instrumental in raising their status as independent art-works. Before her day, such productions were generally regarded as worthless in themselves, seen only as intermediate mechanisms used by artists to produce painted portraits. For that reason, drawings had tended to remain in the artist's possession as studio documents even after the painted commission had been delivered. Catherine's drawings, by contrast, were kept in special boxes in a special private room where she worked with secretaries to identify, classify and annotate them. Court painter François Clouet (1510-1572) was contributing many drawings to the project at this time, which explains why the names of his sitters are preserved with unusual fidelity and completeness. Some of the portraits made only a generation earlier by Jean Clouet (father of François) depicted figures whose identities had been already garbled or lost when Catherine and her secretaries came to describe them.
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| François Clouet Melchior des Prez, Seigneur de Montpezat ca. 1560 drawing British Museum |
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| François Clouet Renée de Lorraine, Duchess of Bavaria ca. 1560 drawing British Museum |
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| François Clouet Jacques de Savoie, duc de Nemours ca. 1560 drawing British Museum |
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| François Clouet Sébastien de l'Aubespine, Bishop of Limoges ca. 1570 drawing British Museum |
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| François Clouet Françoise de Saint Remy ca. 1560 drawing British Museum |
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| François Clouet Charles IX as a young child ca. 1555 drawing British Museum |
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| François Clouet Renée de Lorraine-Guise (an abbess) ca. 1558 drawing British Museum |
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| François Clouet Marguerite de la Marck, comtesse d'Arenberg ca. 1570 drawing British Museum |
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| François Clouet Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre ca. 1559 drawing British Museum |
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| Jean Clouet Portrait of a gentleman ca. 1535 drawing British Museum |
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| Jean Clouet Portrait of a lady ca. 1520-40 drawing British Museum |
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| Jean Clouet Portrait of a gentleman ca. 1518 drawing British Museum |