François Clouet

François Clouet was the leading portrait painter at the French court in the mid sixteenth century. His portraits are precise and cool, with every detail of lace and jewellery in place, and his chalk drawings of the royal family are as prized as his paintings.

He was born around 1510 in Tours, the son of the court painter Jean Clouet, and trained with his father, succeeding him as painter to the king. He worked in Paris for Francis I, Henry II, Francis II and Charles IX. His portrait of Elizabeth of Austria in the Louvre is considered his finest, and he drew Mary, Queen of Scots. His Lady in Her Bath is one of the few mythological or genre paintings by him and one of the most discussed French pictures of the century. Many attributions to him remain unproven. He died in 1572.

In Portrait of Henri II, look at the tiny, exact detail of the costume.