Fouquet’s whole career is in fact still very little documented and is maybe partly misunderstood. His portraits of King Charles VII (Louvre, Paris) and of Guillaume Jouvenel des Ursins (Louvre) are both superb specimens of the new sculptural painting style. It has not been possible to date them more exactly than to the 1450s respectively the 1460s. Fouquet’s possible identity with the so-called Jean de Maisoncelles opens new views, however, for the understanding of his earliest years. As living in Dijon in the southern part of Burgundy most of the years 1426-47, that is a considerable part of his probably very creative young years, Maisoncelles would have had many possibilities to learn to know the very art-interested Duke René of Anjou, who was taken prisoner at the battle of Bulgnéville on 2 July 1431 and kept in prison in Talant near Dijon, later in Bracon-sur-Salins in Franche-Comté during some months and in Château de Dijon until 1 May 1432. He was then temporarily released for a long period but had to return in prison from spring 1435 until November 1436.

René of Anjou had in his service from 1447 and during several years the probably good artist Barthélemy d´Eyck, sometimes thought to be in a way related to Jan van Eyck. This Barthélemy is earliest mentioned in 1444 as living in Aix-en-Provence and is sometimes thought to have painted the Annunciation from c. 1442-45 in Ste Marie-Madeleine in Aix, a work showing evident Netherlandish influences. Because Barthélemy is known in the service of René of Anjou during several years, it has also been guessed that he could be identical with the very original so-called Master of René of Anjou, sometimes referred to as the Master of the Cœur d’amour épris after the Livre du Cœur d’amour épris, a book that is thought to have been composed by René of Anjou in 1457 because four preserved versions mention this year. The richly illuminated version of this book in Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna has however the year 1477 over an erased earlier date. The remarkable miniatures in this book are painted by a very accomplished and sensitive artist, who excels in the creating of sculptural figures with drastically exaggerated shoulders.

These illuminations show in fact so many resemblances, not the least the quite extraordinary high quality, to paintings known to be by Jean Fouquet or for good reasons attributed to him, that it seems difficult to understand why interpreters have tried to make the existence probable of another artist on this exceptionally high artistic level, who should have been working in a nearby region at the same time, had it not been generally accepted that Fouquet should have been born as late as c. 1415-20. Knowing now that there is the possibility that René of Anjou was acquainted with Fouquet as long as since the 1430s, that the dating of Fouquet’s known miniatures is rather floating, and that some works probably have been lost, e g an original early version of the Livre du Cœur d’amour épris, there does no longer seem to be much reason to think of an anonymous Master of René of Anjou, sometimes even thought to have been René himself.

Some miniatures added to the Hours of René d’Anjou (British Library, London), and by some scholars attributed to the René Master, are in fact thought to be from the period c. 1435-42. Other attributed miniatures in a Book of Hours in Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, interpreted to be inspired from the Burgundian art milieu, are also interpreted to be early (1440-45). Still today and without any documented reason most scholars attribute, however, the miniatures in Livre du Cœur d’amour épris and some masterly miniatures in a translation of Boccaccio’s Théseide (also in Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna) to Barthélemy d’Eyck, often trying to find corresponding elements - e g details of armaments or some similarly gesteckten Bein - in paintings by Barthélemy’s presumed relative Jan van Eyck.

Although no direct connection is known between René of Anjou and Jean Fouquet, it is yet documented that the artist Poul Goybault, who is first mentioned as a compagnon of Fouquet, then entered the service of Arthur of Richemont, Duke of Bretagne, and later worked also for René. Interpreted to be a possible work by the René Master is a miniature in the Pas d’arme de la bergère de Tarascon (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) of a Seated Shepherdess Guarding her Flock dated c. 1449-50. This book may have been ordered by Count Louis of Luxembourg, whose sister Catherine since 1445 was married to Arthur of Richemont, a man who as connétable of France was very important at the court of King Charles VII.

This king was at different times portrayed by Jean Fouquet, e g as the TRES VICTORIEUX ROY DE FRANCE (Louvre). Fouquet also painted, as part of the so-called Melun diptych, the outstanding portrait of the king’s treasurer Étienne Chevalier together with St Stephen (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin). It was Chevalier who in one of the first years of the 1450s commissioned Fouquet to illustrate the famous Hours of Étienne Chevalier, which since the eighteenth century is dispersed and incompletely preserved (the greatest part, 40 miniatures, in Musée Condé, Chantilly).

Fouquet’s connection to Arthur of Richemont is of special interest. Étienne Chevalier is known to have been in this duke’s service from 1426 and as long as until Chevalier after the death in 1441 of Arthur of Richemont’s first wife Margaret of Burgundy (the widow of Dauphin Louis of France) entered the service of King Charles VII. There is an excellent portrait in Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, which most likely shows Duke Arthur and probably has been painted by Fouquet. This portrait is, however, since long interpreted to be a work by the ´Master of Flémalle´ Robert Campin from at about the same time as Campin should have painted the also probably misdated Portrait of a Man and Portrait of a Woman (National Gallery, London), all three since long guessed to be crucial for the history of early realistic portrait painting (See the article Early Netherlandish Portrait Paintings Reconsidered).

The portrait in Berlin is by most scholars thought to be of the Burgundian military leader Robert of Masmines, and if so maybe eines der frühesten sicher datierbaren Porträts der niederländischen Malerei. The only reason for this conclusion is that the portrayed man has an insignificant likeness with a drawing of another fat man, this one represented with the Order of the Golden Fleece and mentioned to be of Robert of Masmines. This drawing is part of the so-called Recueil d’Arras (Bibliothèque Nationale, Arras), a collection thought to have been executed by J Leboucz as late as in the sixteenth century. And as Robert of Masmines died already in 1430, and the portrayed man in Berlin is not shown with the Order of the Golden Fleece founded this same year, this portrait has been thought to be very early. The high quality of it has then produced a further guess on Campin as its master, although not a single portrait by this great painter is surely known.

The Berlin portrait has resemblances to the here before discussed portrait of the jester Gonella in Vienna and like this its proportions are narrower and higher than in Jan van Eyck’s portraits, with the face near pressed between the frames. It may have been painted as an early form of passport portrait following Jan van Eyck’s innovation of this portrait type, needed especially by those who travelled very much and therefore often were demanded to identify themselves when passing different borders (See the article Jan van Eyck’s Innovation of Passport Portraits in Oil). In the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid there is a Portrait of a Stout Man that is nearly identical to the portrait in Berlin, which reminds us of the fact that Fouquet is mentioned to have copied portraits for the very active military leader Arthur of Richemont.

Duke Arthur is reported to have been a small, ugly, limp man with brownburnt face and a protruding lower lip. The man on the both paintings seems to match very well Duke Charles of Orléans’s characterization of Arthur of Richemont as the ´lip guy´. A drawing of a man with very narrow lips in the Gagnières Collection (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) should according to a late notation be of Arthur of Richemont, but shows obviously some other person. The portrait in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection is reported to have had a pendant portrait of a lady, lost during World War II. Maybe it was of Arthur of Richemont’s third wife Countess Catherine of Luxembourg and painted before they married on 2 July 1445, at least before her consort’s death in 1458.

Another maybe misinterpreted portrait is one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, that is thought to show a Francesco of Este. This man was born ´before 1430´ as an illegitimate child of Lionello, Marquis of Ferrara. He was in early years sent to the Burgundian court to be raised together with Philip the Good’s son Charles and died ´after 1475´. The portrait is ´on grounds of style´ attributed to Rogier van der Weyden, although it unlike this master’s known portraits is painted against a light background, as is also the here before discussed portrait that I have guessed may show Arthur of Richemont painted by Jean Fouquet. The portrait in New York shows a man with exaggerated shoulders, holding a hammer in his right hand, probably pointing at a reputation for military deeds, also a ring as if it should be the question of an engagement portrait. It is interpreted to be from around 1460, maybe because it is modern in style, and Van der Weyden died in 1464.

No other portraits seem to be known of Francesco of Este, and I doubt that it is him we see on this masterly representation in a style resembling that of Jean Fouquet. The reason for the idea that the man should be Francesco is the, by a rather untrained hand, on the verso of the painting probably later added coat of arms of the Este family. There is, however, also painted the letters m and e joined together as if referring to an engaged or married couple with these initials. Written somewhat differently below the coat of arms is the word francisque, and at the top some words that are difficult to read, maybe v(ost)re tout. At the upper left corner a third hand has added non plus courcelles. The real riddle with this portrait is, however, that it shows a man aged about 25, who is astonishingly alike Maximilian of Austria, portrayed in a somewhat Italianate style. Maybe this portrait was once sent to some court in Italy in the period after the death of Maximilian’s first wife Mary of Burgundy in March 1482 and before he in 1493 remarried, to Bianca Maria Sforza, and that the text on the verso has then been added in quite another connection.

An idealized portrait of a young man with an arrow, maybe the attribute of a tournament judge, is most often thought to show le grand bâtard Anthony of Burgundy (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels). It is with good reasons interpreted to have been painted by Rogier van der Weyden, after 1456 when Anthony received the Order of the Golden Fleece which he is seen wearing. Another portrait of an important Burgundian nobleman with an arrow (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp) shows probably also this tournament hero. This man is portrayed without the Order of the Golden Fleece. The attribution to a follower of Van der Weyden around 1450, on ground of ´the style of the painting and the sitter’s costume´ (L Campbell), may be disputed, because this serious man is portrayed in a more realistic style, somewhat resembling that of Jean Fouquet’s portraits of Étienne Chevalier and Guillaume Jouvenal des Ursins, and the man is represented with exaggerated shoulders, maybe for the first time in Burgundian art.

Jean Fouquet may have been quite as proud for his unusual skilfulness as was certainly his here supposed teacher, or maybe employer, Jan van Eyck. Contrary to Van Eyck he has probably only in exceptional cases signed his paintings, obviously normally finding the quality and characteristics of his work good enough for making him recognized. The only known exception is a small circular self-portrait (Louvre), which is signed Jo(hann)es Fouquet in letters as professionally drawn that we can guess that he was, like so many other of the best artists of his time, originally educated in the highest esteemed profession, that as a goldsmith. The portrait is painted on one of the medals that probably once were placed between the two parts of the Melun diptych, of which the one is the already mentioned portrait of its commissioner, the king’s treasurer Étienne Chevalier together with his patron St Stephen, and the other part shows the Virgin as Queen of Heaven (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp).

The fact that Fouquet’s self-portrait (diameter 68 mm) is painted in gold on enamel strengthens the supposition here, that Fouquet may have been educated and also worked as a goldsmith, although no such work seems to have been preserved. A medal from 1461 in Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, of René of Anjou’s jester Triboulet, signed by the Italian artist Francesco Laurana, shows a nearly drastic proof of the sculptural style with exaggerated shoulders that, as mentioned before, may have been invented by Fouquet. It is reasonable to guess that this medal is based on a portrait by Fouquet, painted as an irony against persons who wanted to be represented as ´lions´, a supposition strengthened by the picture on the reverse of a lion with a magnificent mane. Although René of Anjou had lions as a favourite animal at his court, the choice of a lion for the reverse of this medal of a poor fool has somewhat troubled the specialists.

Accepting the here presented arguments for Fouquet’s possible education in the circle of Jan van Eyck and some early years in Burgundian service, there does no longer be much reason to doubt that the Portrait of a Man (Sammlung Liechtenstein, Vaduz), earlier normally attributed to a so-called Master of 1456, in fact is what it seems to be, the artist’s self-portrait. The likeness with Fouquet’s above-mentioned small circular self-portrait in the Louvre is striking, and the dating in big calligraphic figures is painted with the same masterly skill as the signature on the portrait in the Louvre. The obviously important year 1456 has not got any reasonable explanation. Knowing now that Fouquet probably was born considerably earlier than has been guessed, it may be the question of a self-portrait at the important age of 50, meaning that the right year for the artist’s birth would be 1406.

Still this portrait is enigmatic. The artist has portrayed himself looking directly at the viewer in a way that may show that it is the question of a portrait meant for the family and not to be hanged in public. He is dressed in a coat that is drastically too big for him, a ´royal´ outfit à la mode that may be a gift from someone at the court. This portrait can hardly be anything else than an irony, telling his near family and friends that he despises the pretentious life of the circles into which his artistic fame has given him entrance. The exaggerated shoulders are here not rounded in a somewhat natural way as on his portraits of courtiers. Marked raises of parts of the coat make it it on both sides evident within which limited area it is the mening that the viewer should be able to recognize the real, still very modest artist.

On the small medal in the Louvre Fouquet has painted himself as a self-confident and extremely serious man. The same face may be seen farthest to the left on the artist’s miniature in 1470 of King Louis XI and courtiers in the Status de l’ordre de Saint-Michel (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris), showing a meeting that never took place of this in 1469 planned Order. A curious detail of this miniature is a wooden window shutter a little to the right over the head of the painter’s self-portrait. The shining gold on this shutter may have been needed as a colour accent. It looks, however, more as if pointing in a direction to flee from the prestigeous royal court to a place with more genuine human qualities. The French court is in contrast to the gaudy Burgundian court on the earlier discussed frontispiece of the Chroniques de Hainaut here yet represented with rather solemn courtiers, all dressed in dominating white.

Copyright © 2001-2007 Knut Andersson. All rights reserved.