Week 7: France: The Painters of Louis XIII, Mazarin, Richelieu and other French Collectors.

Louis XIII and His Artists. 

The second slide, a drawing of a man in black chalk, is by none other Louis XIII, the King of France. Though far from an effective monarch- all the political and military policy was left to his advisors- Louis seems to leaned towards the arts, although he needed the prompting of his excellent teacher,-the artist Simon Vouet. Vouet had steeped himself in both Caravaggio and Michelangelo during his Italian period, but on his return to France in 1628, he became famous for a style known as “international baroque” which could be described as the artistic equivalent of the language of diplomacy at the European court culture during the 17^th century.[1] This style owed much to Rubens who with his decoration of the Medici gallery used baroque allegory to articulate the history and ambitions of the French monarchy. In addition to Vouet, Louis patronised many artists including Orazio Gentileschi. Gentileschi came to France- at the invitation of Marie de Medici- in 1624 and seems to have stayed there for two years before going on to London and the Duke of Buckingham.  The Italian painted an Allegory of the “Felicity of the Regency” about 1626 a few years before Vouet returned to France for good. But the most famous artist was Nicolas Poussin who was summoned to Paris in 1639 at the behest of Cardinal Richelieu to undertake a number of projects including the decoration of the Grande Gallerie in the Louvre. This wasn’t a happy episode in Poussin’s career. A nineteenth century recreation of the meeting between Poussin and Louis XIII by Ansiaux gives a sense of Poussin’s disquiet as a reluctant royal painter. He certainly didn’t relish the honour. For one thing, Vouet was hostile as Poussin threatened his market; for another, the painters allocated to Poussin (contemptuously dismissed as the “brigade” by the artist) weren’t to his taste. Unsurprisingly Poussin eventually made his escape; he left France for ever in 1641 with the excuse that his wife, Anne Marie, was ill, a dodge used by Andrea dal Sarto in the previous century.  

 Philip de Champaigne, Louis XIII Crowned by Victory (Siege of La Rochelle, 1628), 1635, Oil on canvas, 228 x 175 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Louis XIII, Portrait of a Man, black chalk, white highlighting, Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

Orazio Gentileschi, Public Felicity, oil on canvas, 268 x 1`70 cm, c.1625, Museé du Louvre.

Jean-Joseph Ansiaux, Cardinal Richelieu presenting Poussin to Louis XIII, 1817, oil on canvas, 262 x 325.4 cm, Museé des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux.

Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642)  and Patronage

Much of the employment of artists and collections in France was due to the energy and vision of Cardinal Richelieu who guided both the political and artistic direction of France. This was only achieved by great intelligence and ruthlessness. These qualities are evident in the brilliant portraits of Cardinal Armand d’Plessis d’ Richelieu by Phillipe de Champaigne. Richelieu’s political career began in 1614, and after aligning himself with Marie de Medici, he gained a Cardinal’s hat in 1622.Richelieu’s rise continued In 1624 when he became chief Minister to Louis XIII who was terrified of him. Richelieu was subsequently made a duke and appointed to the Order of the Holy Spirit which he wears in Champaigne’s portrait. Apart from achieving great political power, Richelieu amassed large reserves of wealth, mainly with the objective of elevating his family to the highest nobility.[2] He built for himself the Palais-Cardinal (Palais-Royal), a chateau at Rueil, and the ancestral chateau of Poitou- this contained one room of paintings by Poussin such as the Triumph of Pan.  Brown describes the death inventory of the Palais-Cardinal as a “compelling document” but despite the luxury objects, it is the picture collection which is the most notable. Masterpieces by Leonardo, Mantegna, Perugino, Costa, Veronese, Caravaggio, Titian and Poussin attest to the splendour of the Cardinal’s collection.

Lorenzo Costa, The Reign of Comus, c. 1511, Oil on canvas, 152 x 238 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Nicolas Poussin, Triumph of Bacchus, c. 1636, oil on canvas, 128. 8 x 151.1 cm, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.

Andrea Mantegna, Pallas Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue, 1499-1502, Tempera on canvas, 160 x 192 cm, Musée du Louvre.

Lorenzo Costa, Court of Isabella d'Este, c. 1506, Oil on canvas, 164 x 197 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

 

 Cardinal Mazarin

Giulio Mazarin, later known as Jules Mazarin, came from origins of great obscurity. His father made a humble living with the Colonna family in Rome. Mazarin solved his poverty by fixing himself to important and wealthy people like the Barberini, Pope Urban VIII in the 1630s. Mazarin initiated links with France in 1630 after meeting Richelieu. In 1641, his ascent continued with the acquisition of a Cardinal’s hat; but it was after Richelieu’s death in 1642 that Mazarin really gained supreme power. After the civil war (Fronde), Mazarin orchestrated peace overtures with Spain’s envoy, Luis de Haro who had scored over Mazarin in the English sales. Thanks to the Barberini Mazarin loved art and set out to collect it, though in small lots unlike other “megacollectors” on this course. Like Arundel and co, Mazarin ran a network of agents and spies who were charged with the responsibility of seeking out art. Mazarin’s collection was confiscated by the frondeurs, but, luckily, it was recovered in 1653. An inventory was made in this year listing 431 pictures as original, with only 17 pictures copies.[3] But the death inventory of 1661 lists 546 originals, ninety copies and 241 portraits of popes. As Brown states, “as these inventories make clear, Mazarin favoured the works of painters he had known in Rome, especially the so-called Bolognese/Roman classicists.”[4] This group included Annibale Carracci, Domenichino, Guido Reni, Guercino, Albani and Pietro da Cortona. No art lover or connoisseur wants to contemplate the fact that they will be parted from art permanently by inevitable death; but perhaps the most heart-rending reminder of this is the conversation between Mazarin and the count of Brienne: “Look, my good friend, at this beautiful painting by Correggio and also at the Venus of Titian (the Pardo Venus), and at that incomparable Deluge by Annibale Carracci.[5]Oh my poor friend, all this must be left behind. Farewell dear pictures that I have loved so well and which have cost me so much.”

Unfortunately for Mazarin, his opportunity to buy masterpieces from Charles I’s collection was thwarted by the eruption of the Fronde which forced him to leave Paris twice. When the dust had settled, the Spanish had made off with all the best pictures. Still, Mazarin did well to acquire Titian’s Pardo Venus (bought at a very high price), but as the best pictures were in short supply Mazarin had to make do with portraits by Van Dyck which were purchased by Mazarin’s agent in London- Antoine de Bordeaux. Mazarin’s management of these Van Dyck pictures offers insights into his connoisseurial acumen. He was worried about copies and imparted this sage advice to Bordeaux: “It is necessary to be on guard not to allow yourself to be fooled, because it is difficult to discern a copy from an original when the copy is well done.” Another example of Mazarin’s judgment on pictures is revealed in his response to an enquiry about a Giulio Romano.[6]

Robert Nanteuil, Cardinal Jules Mazarin in his Gallery, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Jean Marot, Palais Mazarin, from Cabinet des singularitiés d’ architecture etc, 17th century, etching

Titian, Jupiter and Antiope (Pardo Venus), 1535-40, reworked c. 1560, Oil on canvas, 196 x 385 cm, Musée du Louvre.

 Correggio, The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine, 1526-27, Wood, 105 x 102 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Other French Collectors. 

Richelieu certainly spurred many members of the French court to collect pictures and build galleries for their houses. These included the Duc de Créquy who acquired the work of Italian painters like Lanfranco, Reni and the Carracci; also, he patronised French painters in Rome like Claude and Poussin. Créquy died in battle against the Spanish in 1638. Louis Phèlypeaux de La Vrillière (1599- 1681) was another important collector. Amongst the pictures that La Vrillière owned were Raphael’s Madonna with the Blue Diadem and Titian’s Perseus and Andromeda, the former inherited from his father-in-law Michel Particelli d’Emery who also owned a large collection of pictures of his own. Last, but certainly not least was Everhard Jabach, a banker from Cologne who became a French citizen in 1647 and grew immensely rich. A picture collector, dealer and an impeccable connoisseur said to be able to tell two true Raphael originals out of a mass of 300, Jabach amassed both paintings and drawing some from the collection of Louis XIV’s disgraced minister, Fouquet.[7] The splendid group portrait of Jabach and his family was purchased by the Met this year. Today, about three-quarters of Jabach’s collection is in the Louvre including Leonardo’s John the Baptist, Titian’s Woman at her Toilette, and fine pictures from Italians like Sebastiano del Piombo, Rosso Fiorentino, Parmigianino and Guilio Romano.

Titian, Woman with a Mirror, c. 1514, Oil on canvas, 93 x 76 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Leonardo da Vinci, St John the Baptist, 1513-16, Oil on panel, 69 x 57 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Raphael, Madonna with the Blue Diadem, 1510-11, Oil on wood, 68 x 44 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris

Charles Le Brun, Everhard Jabach and Family, 1660, oil on canvas, 280 x 328 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

 Slides

1)      Philip de Champaigne, Louis XIII Crowned by Victory (Siege of La Rochelle, 1628), 1635, Oil on canvas, 228 x 175 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

2)      Louis XIII, Portrait of a Man, black chalk, white highlighting, Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

3)      Simon Vouet, Time Vanquished by Love, Hope and Renown, 1645-46, Oil on canvas, 187 x 142 cm, Musée du Berry, Bourges.

4)      Orazio Gentileschi, Public Felicity, oil on canvas, 268 x 1`70 cm, c.1625, Museé du Louvre.[8]

5)      Simon Vouet, Allegory of Wealth, 1630-35, Oil on canvas, 170 x 124 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

6)      Giovanni Baglione,  Clio, Oil on canvas, 195 x 150 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Arras.

7)      Laurent de La Hyre, Allegory of Music, 1649, oil on canvas, 105.7 x 144.1 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

8)      Phillipe de Champaigne, Triple Portrait of Richelieu, c. 1640, Oil on canvas, 58 x 72 cm, National Gallery, London.[9]

9)      Phillipe de Champaigne, Cardinal Richelieu, 1633-40, National Gallery, London, oil on canvas, 259.5 x 178.5 cm.[10]

10)   Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin and Child with St Anne, c. 1510, Oil on wood, 168 x 130 cm,11)   Musée du Louvre.

11)   Paolo Veronese. Supper at Emmaus, Louvre, c. 1560, Oil on canvas, 242 x 416 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

12)   Andrea Mantegna, Pallas Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue, 1499-1502, Tempera on canvas, 160 x 192 cm, Musée du Louvre.

13)   Andrea Mantegna, Parnassus, 1497, tempera and gold on canvas, 54.6 cm × 70.7 cm (21.5 in × 27.8 in).

14)   Lorenzo Costa, Court of Isabella d'Este, c. 1506, Oil on canvas, 164 x 197 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

15)   Nicolas Poussin, Triumph of Bacchus, c. 1636, oil on canvas, 128. 8 x 151.1 cm, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.

16)   Nicolas Poussin, Triumph of Pan, 1636, oil on canvas, 135.9 x 146 cm, London, National Gallery.[11]

17)   Perugino, Combat of Love and Chastity, 1505, Canvas, 160 x 191 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

18)   Lorenzo Costa, The Reign of Comus, c. 1511, Oil on canvas, 152 x 238 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

19)   Jacques Stella, the Liberality of Titus (Allegory of the Liberality of Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu), Alternate Title: The Liberality of Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, c. 1637-1638, oil on canvas, 191 x 146.2 cm, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard.

20)   Jean-Joseph Ansiaux, Cardinal Richelieu presenting Poussin to Louis XIII, 1817, oil on canvas, 262 x 325.4 cm, Museé des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux.[12]

21)   Nicolas Poussin, The Saving of Truth from Envy and Discord, c. 1641, circular, diameter, 197 cm, Museé du Louvre.[13]

22)   Caravaggio, Musical Concert, 1595-96, Oil on canvas, 92 x 118,5 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

23)   Lionello Spada, Aeneas and Anchises, c. 1615, Oil on canvas, 195 x 132 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris

24)   Robert Nanteuil, Cardinal Jules Mazarin in his Gallery, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

25)   Jean Marot, Palais Mazarin, from Cabinet des singularitiés d’ architecture etc, 17th century, etching.

26)   Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa (La Gioconda), c. 1503-5, Oil on panel, 77 x 53 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

27)   Raphael, Madonna with the Blue Diadem, 1510-11, Oil on wood, 68 x 44 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.[14]

28)   Titian, Perseus and Andromeda, 1554-56, Oil on canvas, 185 x 199 cm, Wallace Collection, London.

29)   Raphael, The Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist (La Belle Jardinière), 1507, Oil on wood, 122 x 80 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

30)   Charles Le Brun, Everhard Jabach and Family, 1660, oil on canvas, 280 x 328 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.For more information and progress about the restoration, see the Met's website- link

31)   Titian, Pastoral Concert, 1508-09, Oil on canvas, 110 x 138 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

32)   Leonardo da Vinci, St John the Baptist, 1513-16, Oil on panel, 69 x 57 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

33)   Titian, Woman with a Mirror, c. 1514, Oil on canvas, 93 x 76 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

34)   Caravaggio, The Death of the Virgin, 1602-06, Oil on canvas, 369 x 245 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

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[1] Blunt in Art and Architecture in Seventeenth-Century France, (Pelican History of Art, 1953, 239) characterised Vouet’s return to France in 1627 as the start of a new era in painting, but this view has been questioned by some French scholars. Alain Mérot for instance, stated that “1627 marked no absolute beginning.” Mérot, Le Peinture françaises au XVII siècle, (Paris, 1994), 104. Mérot mentions the influence of Orazio’s Public Felicity- see below- on French painters; also, there were paintings in France by Guido Reni (an Assumption and the Abduction of Helen) which had launched the Italianate movement. According to this narrative, Vouet merely aligned himself with this movement which had already begun.

[2] Brown, Kings and Connoisseurs, 191.

[3] Jonathan Brown, Kings and Connoisseurs, 186. 

[4]Brown, Kings, 186.

[5] The picture was in fact painted by Agostino Carracci’s son, Antonio Carracci- see below.

[6] Cited in Brown, 187:” As for the picture by Guilio Romano, for which they are asking 800 livres, I would be pleased to know the dimensions and with which figures it is filled {i.e. the composition], and if it is a very beautiful and original piece and as well done as other portraits of which you have spoken.”

[7] The comment of the Dutch physicist, Christian Huygens, is cited in Brown, Kings (206): “We examined with him at the house of M Colbert a large quantity of drawings [from the Arundel Collection] that a gentleman from Flanders has brought here and is offering to sell to the King. You would have unparalleled pleasure to see how Jabach determines the authenticity of these pieces with magisterial conceitedness, concluding that, of the three hundred drawings that were attributed to Raphael, there were but two originals.”

[8] Originally attributed to Jean Monier, it was identified as a work by Orazio by Charles Sterling in a 1958 article which is alluded to in an essay on Orazio’s two years in France, Jean-Pierre Cuzin, “Gentileschi and France, Gentileschi and the French” in Orazio and Artemisia  Gentileschi, (Met, New York, 2001), 203-213, “PF”, no. 44.  Sterling concluded that this figure was an allegory about the vicissitudes of Marie de Medici after the assassination of her husband Henri IV in 1610, Sterling, “Gentileschi in France”, “Burlington Magazine”, No. 100, (1958), 112-121.

[9] May have been owned by the sculptor Mochi; presented to the NG in 1869.

[10] Presented to the NG in 1895.

[11] A letter tells us that Gaspard de Daillon, Bishop of Albi, took “deux tableaux de Bacchanales” to the Château de Richelieu in 1636, after showing them to the Cardinal at Amiens.  These were the Triumph of Pan and Triumph of Bacchus. For lengthy discussion of the Pan, and bibliography, see Humphrey Wine, The Seventeenth-Century French Paintings, National Gallery, (Yale, 2001), 350f.  The governor of Richelieu’s Château, Benjamin Vignier describes the Cabinet du Roi (where the pictures were hung) as a room of some ten by twelve metres in area, and some five metres high. The paintings by Poussin were placed together along with some pictures that Richelieu had obtained from the Mantuan court before 1635. According to Vignier, the order of the paintings was as follows: Mantegna’s Minerva Expelling the Vices; to the right of this was Mantegna’s Parnassus; then Poussin’s Banquet of Silenus (known only through a copy); Vignier then describes “the third painting near by the windows” (Costa’s Court of Isabella d’Este); opposite this was Poussin’s Triumph of Bacchus next to which was the artist’s Triumph of Pan followed by Perugino’s Combat of Love and Chastity;  and finally Mantegna/Costa’s Reign of Comus.

[12] Ansiaux commits the error of showing Poussin presenting a picture he had not yet painted- the Testament of Eudamidas of 1648.

[13] Commissioned by Cardinal Richelieu for the ceiling of the Grande Cabinet of the Palais Cardinal, along with the Moses and the Burning Bush, which was over the fireplace.  

[14] The French curators were disinclined to see this as a work by Raphael and suggested instead the name of Gian Francesco Penni. Raphael dans le collections françaises (Paris, 1983-84), no. 17.