Chauvinistic French critics have made much capital out of the important
national school that is supposed to have flourished towards the end
of the fifteenth century at Moulins, and especially of the mysterious
“Maître de Moulins,” so called from a famous triptych at Moulins which
cannot be proved to be the work of a French painter, and shows very
marked Italian characteristics, although the types of the faces are
distinctly French. Italian painters had been working in France ever
since Simone Martini (1285?-1344) was employed to decorate the Pope’s
Palace at Avignon; and in the absence of definite documentary evidence
it will always remain a difficult matter to decide whether certain
pictures, Italian in style and French as regards the types, are the
work of Italian masters painting in France, or of Frenchmen trained by
Italians.
To the Maître de Moulins have been loosely ascribed certain pictures
in the Louvre collection, especially since attempts have been made, in
the face of great improbability, to identify him with Jehan Perréal,
or Jehan de Paris, one of the few painters of that period whose
French nationality has been satisfactorily established. Perréal was
born at Lyons, and became Court painter in Paris to Charles VIII. and
Louis XII. In this capacity he was sent to England at the time of the
marriage of Louis XII. with Princess Mary Tudor, to design the bride’s
toilettes. If Perréal be the painter of _The Virgin between Two Donors_
(No. 998D, formerly No. 1048, and now labelled No. —48), which bears
upon the pilasters of a balustrade the letters “I P,” he is certainly
not identical with the Maître de Moulins to whom have been attributed
the portraits of _Pierre II., Sire de Beaujeu, Son-in-Law of Louis
XI._ (No. 1004), and his wife, _Anne of France, Duchess of Bourbon,
Daughter of Louis XI._ (No. 1005), which are apparently the wings of a
triptych of which the centre panel has disappeared. They are utterly
lacking in charm of colour and are anything but masterly in treatment.
Both the personages are portrayed kneeling, the husband being presented
by his Patron Saint and the wife by St. John the Evangelist. The
_Portrait of Pierre_ was bought in 1842 by Louis Philippe for £20. The
companion panel was presented to the Louvre in 1888 by M. Maciet. M.
L. Dimier has rightly pointed out that there is no evidence whatever
to prove these two pictures to have been painted by a French master.
_The Virgin between Two Donors_ (No. 998D) has lately been tentatively
attributed to the “Master of the Ursula Legend.”