as the praises of François Clouet were sung by the writers of the day, his name was carefully preserved from reign to reign, and there is an ancient and unbroken tradition in the attribution of many of his pictures. There are not, however, any original attestations of his works, nor are any documents known which would guarantee the ascriptions usually accepted. To him are attributed the portraits of Francis I. at the Uffizi and at the Louvre, and various drawings relating to them. He probably also painted the portrait of Catherine de’ Medici at Versailles and other works, and in all probability a large number of the drawings ascribed to him were from his hand. One of his most remarkable portraits is that of Mary, queen of Scots, a drawing in chalks in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and of similar character are the two portraits of Charles IX. and the one at Chantilly of Marguerite of France. Perhaps his masterpiece is the portrait of Elizabeth of Austria in the Louvre.
He resided in Paris in the rue de Ste Avoye in the Temple quarter, close to the Hôtel de Guise, and in 1568 is known to have been under the patronage of Claude Gouffier de Boisy, Seigneur d’Oiron, and his wife Claude de Baune. Another ascertained fact concerning François Clouet is that in 1571 he was “summoned to the office of the Court of the Mint,” and his opinion was taken on the likeness to the king of a portrait struck by the mint. He prepared the death-mask of Henry II., as in 1547 he had taken a similar mask of the face and hands of Francis I., in order that the effigy to be used at the funeral might be prepared from his drawings; and on each of these occasions he executed the painting to be used in the decorations of the church and the banners for the great ceremony.
Several miniatures are believed to be his work, one very remarkable portrait being the half-length figure of Henry II. in the collection of Mr J. Pierpont Morgan. Another of his portraits is that of the duc d’Alençon in the Jones collection at South Kensington, and certain representations of members of the royal family which were in the Hamilton Palace collection and the Magniac sale are usually ascribed to him. He died on the 22nd of December 1572, shortly after the massacre of St Bartholomew, and his will, mentioning his sister and his two illegitimate daughters, and dealing with the disposition of a considerable amount of property, is still in existence. His daughters subsequently became nuns.
His work is remarkable for the extreme accuracy of the drawing, the elaborate finish of all the details, and the exquisite completeness of the whole portrait. He must have been a man of high intelligence, and of great penetration, intensely interested in his work, and with considerable ability to represent the character of his sitter in his portraits. His colouring is perhaps not specially remarkable, nor from the point of style can his pictures be considered specially beautiful, but in perfection of drawing he has hardly any equal.
To Monsieur Louis Dimier, the leading authority upon his works, and to his volume on French Painting in the Sixteenth Century, as well as to the works of MM. Bouchot, La Borde and Maulde-La Clavière, the present writer is indebted for the information contained in this article. (G. C. W.)
CLOUET, JEAN (d. c. 1541). French miniature painter, generally known as JANET. The authentic presence of this artist at the French court is first to be noted in 1516, the second year of the reign of Francis I. By a deed of gift made by the king to the artist’s son of his father’s estate, which had escheated to the crown, we learn that he was not actually a Frenchman, and never even naturalized. He is supposed to have been a native of the Low Countries, and probably his real name was Clowet. His position was that of groom of the chamber to the king, and he received a stipend at first of 180 livres and later of 240. He lived several years in Tours, and there it was he met his wife, who was the daughter of a jeweller. He is recorded as living in Tours in 1522, and there is a reference to his wife’s residence in the same town in 1523, but in 1529 they were both settled in Paris, probably in the neighbourhood of the parish of Ste Innocent, in the cemetery of which they were buried. He stood godfather at a christening on the 8th of July 1540, but was no longer living in December 1541, and therefore died between those two dates.
His brother, known as Clouet de Navarre, was in the service of Marguérite d’Angoulême, sister of Francis I., and is referred to in a letter written by Marguérite about 1529. Jean Clouet had two children, François and Catherine, who married Abel Foulon, and left one son, who continued the profession of François Clouet after his decease. Jean Clouet was undoubtedly a very skilful portrait painter, but it must be acknowledged without hesitation that there is no work in existence which has been proved to be his. There is no doubt that he painted a portrait of the mathematician, Oronce Finé, in 1530, when Finé was thirty-six years old, but the portrait is now known only by a print. Janet is generally believed, however, to have been responsible for a very large number of the wonderful portrait drawings now preserved at Chantilly, and at the Bibliothèque Nationale, and to him is attributed the portrait of an unknown man at Hampton Court, that of the dauphin Francis, son of Francis I. at Antwerp, and one other portrait, that of Francis I. in the Louvre.
Seven miniature portraits in the Manuscript of the Gallic War in the Bibliothèque Nationale (13,429) are attributed to Janet with very strong probability, and to these may be added an eighth in the collection of Mr J. Pierpont Morgan, and representing Charles de Cossé, Maréchal de Brissac, identical in its characteristics with the seven already known. There are other miniatures in the collection of Mr Morgan, which may be attributed to Jean Clouet with some strong degree of probability, inasmuch as they closely resemble the portrait drawings at Chantilly and in Paris which are taken to be his work. In his oil paintings the execution is delicate and smooth, the outlines hard, the texture pure, and the whole work elaborately and very highly finished in rich, limpid colour. The chalk drawings are of remarkable excellence, the medium being used by the artist with perfect ease and absolute sureness, and the mingling of colour being in exquisite taste, the modelling exceedingly subtle, and the drawing careful, tender and emphatic. The collection of drawings preserved in France, and attributed to this artist and his school, comprises portraits of all the important persons of the time of Francis I. In one album of drawings the portraits are annotated by the king himself, and his merry reflections, stinging taunts or biting satires, add very largely to a proper understanding of the life of his time and court. Definite evidence, however, is still lacking to establish the attribution of the best of these drawings and of certain oil paintings to the Jean Clouet who was groom of the chambers to the king.
The chief authority in France on the work of this artist is Monsieur Louis Dimier, and to his works, and to information derived direct from him, the present writer is indebted for almost all the information given in this article. (G. C. W.)
CLOUGH, ANNE JEMIMA (1820–1892), English educationalist, was born at Liverpool on the 20th of January 1820, the daughter of a cotton merchant. She was the sister of Arthur Hugh Clough, the poet. When two years old she was taken with the rest of the family to Charleston, South Carolina. It was not till 1836 that she returned to England, and though her ambition was to write, she was occupied for the most part in teaching. Her father’s failure in business led her to open a school in 1841. This was carried on until 1846. In 1852, after making some technical studies in London and working at the Borough Road and the Home and Colonial schools, she opened another small school of her own at Ambleside in Westmorland. Giving this up some ten years later, she lived for a time with the widow of her brother Arthur Hugh Clough—who had died in 1861—in order that she might educate his children. Keenly interested in the education of women, she made friends with Miss Emily Davies, Madame Bodichon, Miss Buss and others. After helping to found the North of England council for promoting the higher education of women, she acted as its secretary from 1867 to 1870 and as its president from 1873 to 1874. When it was decided to open a house for the residence of women students at Cambridge, Miss Clough was chosen as its first principal.
