CLOUET, A French family of paint ers, originally Flemish. JEHAN, the first Clouet, lived in Brussels about 1475, and does not seem to have left his country. His son, JEHAN. called .1EHANNET (c.1485-1541), came to France, and settled at Tours, where he married Jeanne Boucault. Afterwards he went to Paris, where, about 151S, he became Court painter and valet de-chambre to Francis 1. Two portraits of the King are attributed to him—one representing Trim as a young man, in the Louvre, and the other representing him as a middle-aged man, in the Pitti Palace, Florence. This latter was also sup posed to be by Holbein, and may possibly be by Francois, Jehannet's son. Both works have the hall-mark of the Flemish School—a certain dry ness and elaboration of detail and great delicacy of treatment.—FRANcOIS, also called JEIIAN or JEHANNET (C.1510-72), was probably born at Tours. He succeeded his father as Court painter and valet-de-ehambre to Francis I., and after wards held the same position under Henry 11., Francis IL, Charles IX.. and Henry III. There are several allusions to him in the Court docu ments of the time, and we learn from them that he molded the was funeral effigies of Francis 1. and Henry II. Despite the influence of the Italian artists, whom Francis and his successors patronized. Jehan was considered the first painter of his day. The poets Ronsard and Du
Bellay both speak of his portraits. Many of his works have been mistaken for those of Holbein, and only two of his portraits, those of Charles IX. and Elizabeth of Austria, have been posi tively identified as his. He preserves the Flem ish realistic method and love of detail,, carried to all extreme, in his treatment of such acces sories as jewels and lace, along with precision and delicacy in flesh-painting. Other pictures probably by him are portraits of Francis II. as a child, in the Antwerp Museum, and of the Duke of Anjou, Museum. and a portrait called Sir Thomas More, in the Brussels :Museum. His subjects are usually small full - lengths, with a background of greenish blue. A large number of drawings are also attributed to him. Many portraits in the style of Clouet were produced by copyists and imitators. There is supposed to have been still another Clouet, a brother of Francois; hut of him nothing is known. Con sult: Laborde, La renaissance des arts a to eonr dc From-c (Paris, 1855) Woltmann and Woer mann, Geschichtc der Male•ci, ii. (Leipzig, 1879 82) ; Pattison, The Renaissance of in France (London, 1879) ; Gower, Three Hundred Por traits by Clonct at Castle Homard (London, 1S75).