CHAPTER XVI JEAN CLOUET The veil of oblivion which so undeservedly fell upon Perréal is gradually lifted as we approach the period of Jean Clouet. Even if we except some drawings which we are bound to assign to an earlier period there still remain a great number which, judging by the age and style of costume of the characters represented, must necessarily be reckoned as falling within his period and may be reasonably attributed to him. Mention is made of no less than four persons bearing the surname of Clouet: Jean the grandfather, who painted for the Duke of Burgundy at Brussels about 1485; Jean Clouet, Court-Painter to Francis I; and his two sons--Clouet of Navarre[88] and François, who brought to its zenith the art of drawing in sixteenth-century France. [Illustration: Plate LIV. THE DAUPHIN FRANCOIS, ELDEST SON OF FRANCIS I. Antwerp Museum. _To face page 212._] Jean Clouet,[89] also known as _Jeannet_, migrated to France and settled at Tours, where he presently married Jeanne Boucault, the daughter of a goldsmith. He first appears in the Royal Accounts in 1516 as receiving 160 livres per annum--a sum which, on the death of Bourdichon in 1522, was increased to 240 livres. Subsequently we find special references to several portraits by him, taken from life[90] which the King was so anxious to see that he sent for them by "diligence and post-horses." Again we read further on that his wife, Jeanne, travelled expressly from Paris[91] to Fontainebleau in order to convey to His Majesty portraits done by her husband: "_Pour apporter et monstrer au dict seigneur aucuns ouvrages du dict Jeannet_." After the death of Perréal in 1528 Jean Clouet remained practically without a rival. Only one artist--a certain Jean Champion who seems to have been in receipt of a very small salary--is mentioned besides him; but none of this man's work is actually recorded. Amongst the numerous works attributed to Jean Clouet absolute certainty may be given to a portrait of _Oronce Finé_, which, however, has only come down to us through a mediocre engraving in Thevet's series of _Hommes Illustres_. Thevet speaks of this portrait as an authentic work by Jean Clouet on the authority of the mathematician's own son but it is not easy to judge fairly the work of any artist by an engraving. We can, however, gather enough from it to justify us in concluding that Jean Clouet's craftsmanship was of a more elaborate nature than that which may be observed in the portraits of the _Preux de-Marignan_. The portrait of _Oronce Finé_, for example, bears far more resemblance to that of _Duc Claude de Guise_,[92] of which there is a drawing at Chantilly and a coloured copy in the Pitti Gallery at Florence, both executed at about the same time. Then again there is at Hampton Court an excellent portrait of an _Unknown Man_ holding a volume of Petrarch, which is attributed to Jean Clouet. The original drawing for this somewhat later and more artistic piece of work is also at