Guy XVII, Comte de Laval

Artist: François Clouet
Title: Guy XVII, Comte de Laval
Date: ca. 1540
Culture: French
Medium: Oil on oak panel
Dimensions: 32.2 x 24.4 cm (12-3/4 x 9-5/8 in.)
Accession Number: 1955:001
Credit Line: François Clouet, Guy XVII, Comte de Laval, ca. 1540, oil on oak panel, 32.2 x 24.4 cm (12-3/4 x 9-5/8 in.), Putnam Foundation, Timken Museum of Art

Description

The subject of François Clouet’s painting is the son of one of the great noble families of France. He wears a dark velvet suit with embroidery that resembles gold chains and a cap with a short ostrich feather. Typical of French court portraits of the mid-sixteenth century, the subject's facial features are precisely recorded with exactitude and without flattery and he seems withdrawn into a world of his own thoughts. François Clouet was the son of Jean Clouet, the most famous painter in France during the first half of the sixteenth century. François succeeded his father as court painter to François I and, after the king's death, continued to hold the position under the three kings who followed.

Related Information / Media

Provenance:

Château de Nantilly (the seat of the bishops of Lyon); M. de Montgolfier; M. Lucien Brun, Château d’Essuly, near Lyon; Private collection, Paris; Acquired by the Putnam Foundation, 1955

Exhibited:

Cambridge, Mass., The Fogg Art Museum, 1951, Cranach and Clouet: Princely Portrait Drawings of the Northern Renaissance; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, extended loan, 1956-65.

Literature:

Louis Dimier, Histoire de la peinture de portrait en France au XVIe siècle (Paris and Brussels, 1925), p. 25, no. 101; "Countrywide Loans from California," Art News 55 (November 1956): 33; Agnes Mongan and Elizabeth Mongan, European Paintings in the Tim ken Art Gallery (San Diego, 1969), pp. 92, 93, 129-30, no. 34, ill.; Timken Art Gallery: European and American Works of Art in the Putnam Foundation Collection (San Diego, 1983), pp. 36-39, 1.1.8, no. 11, ill. and detail.

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Note

This record has been reviewed by Timken Museum of Art staff and may be incomplete or contain errors. Our records are constantly revised. Inquiries about provenance are advised to contact the Director of Curatorial Affairs: curator@timkenmuseum.org.