CLOUET, FRANÇOIS

(c. 1510-1572)

   François Clouet succeeded his father Jean as court painter in France. He worked in this capacity for kings Henry II, Francis II, and Charles IX. His Lady in Her Bath (c. 1550-1570; Washington, National Gallery) is one of two of his signed works and is thought by some to depict Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henry II. Others identify her as Marie Touchet, the mistress of Charles IX. The half-length idealized nude in the painting is rendered in the Italianate mode, while the rest of the elements in the work are Flemish, including the nursing woman, symbol of domesticity; the maidservant who brings water for the bath, symbol of temperance; the fruits in the foreground a young boy picks, symbol of the transience of youth; and the pearls worn by the central figure, which are there to indicate her chastity. The portrait Apothecary Pierre Quthe (1562; Paris, Louvre) is Clouet's other signed work. It presents the sitter with an opened herbarium, a reference to the garden of medicinal plants he kept. Like the Lady in Her Bath, this work depends on Italian and Northern prototypes, specifically the male portraits of Agnolo Bronzino and Anthonis Mor.