Of far greater importance is the school which flourished at Tours, for
here at last we meet with clearly marked personalities whose names are
definitely connected with extant works, even if the character of their
art remains essentially Flemish. The best known artist of this group
is Jean Fouquet (_c._ 1425-1480?), who was Painter to Charles VII. and
Louis XI. and wrought the wonderful miniatures in the famous Book of
Hours at Chantilly. He was distinctly more successful as an illuminator
than as a painter, although his masterpiece, the Chevalier diptych (of
which one wing is at the Antwerp and the other at the Berlin Museum),
is a work of considerable merit. The Louvre owns an interesting
painting from his brush—the portrait of the corpulent Chancellor of
France, _Guillaume Juvénal des Ursins, Baron de Trainel_ (No. 288).
He is depicted in three-quarter profile to the right, dressed in a
fur-edged red robe, with hands folded in prayer, before an open book on
a cushion. The pilasters in the rich architectural setting terminate
in two bears supporting the Chancellor’s coat of arms. This important
picture was bought in 1835 for the sum of £36. It was then attributed
to Michael Wohlgemuth!
Fouquet is known to have painted Charles VII. in 1444; but the
_Portrait of Charles VII., King of France_ (No. 289), with the
inscription along the top, “LE TRÈS GLORIEUX ROY DE FRANCE,” and below,
“CHARLES SEPTIESME DE CE NOM,” cannot certainly be identified with the
picture referred to in contemporary records. The Louvre picture was
acquired in 1838 for £18.
The name of Jean Fouquet has for a long time been connected with
the admirable little portrait known as _The Man with the Wineglass_
(No. 1000, formerly No. 1000A). It was shown as a work of Fouquet at
the Exhibition of French Primitives; and the attribution is still
maintained by many French critics, although in the official Catalogue
the picture is given to an Unknown French painter of the fifteenth
century known as “The Master of 1456” from a dated picture in the
Liechtenstein Gallery in Vienna. The whole style of the painting would,
however, point to German origin, the only thing French about the
picture being the type of the personage represented. It is interesting
to note that this portrait, which was bought from a Paris dealer in
1906 for £7600, was formerly in the collection of Count Wilczek in
Vienna, and was bought by its former owner at Ulm. It is probably the
work of a painter of the Swabian school.