Marguerite de France as Minerva: a sixteenth-century Limoges painted enamel by Jean de Court in the Wallace Collection

Apollo, Feb, 2004 by Suzanne Higgott, Isabelle Biron

In August 1871, Sir Richard Wallace (1818-90) acquired the extensive collection of medieval and renaissance works of art, arms and armour formed in Paris by Alfred-Emilien, Comte de Nieuwerkerke (1811 92), between 1865 and 1870. (1) One of the 'trophy' pieces in Nieuwerkerke's collection was a Limoges enamel depicting Marguerite de France (1523-74), daughter of Francois I and sister of Henri II, as the classical goddess Pallas/Minerva (Fig. 1) (2) Signed by Jean de Court and dated 1555 on the reverse (Fig. 2), its provenance is unknown before its appearance in Nieuwerkerke's collection in 1866. (3) Nieuwerkerke knew the sitter's identity, which was recorded on the slip of its Italian walnut frame, also now in the Wallace Collection, which dates from the early sixteenth century and has nineteenth-century additions (Fig. 16) (4)

[FIGURES 1,2 AND 16 OMITTED]

If the enamel is indeed authentic, it is of considerable significance. However, Limoges painted enamels were in great demand with wealthy collectors at this period and in recent years research has produced increasing evidence of nineteenth century faking of renaissance-style enamels. Several unusual characteristics of Jean de Court's enamel have led to concern about its status. (5)

The first section of this article explores the cultural context of the enamel, and--on the basis of this and of recent scientific analysis (for which, see the Appendix by Isabelle Biron)--seeks to lay to rest doubts about its authenticity. Following on from this, the second section discusses the complex issue of the identity of Jean de Court and his oeuvre, in which the Wallace Collection enamel plays a a key role.

The enamel, measuring 20.9 x 15.8 cm, is painted in polychrome opaque and translucent enamels with gold highlights and has a colourless counter enamel. Marguerite has Minerva's attributes as Goddess of War and of Wisdom. As Goddess of War, she wears her traditional flowing robes and a breastplate, holds a spear and a shield decorated with the head of the Gorgon Medusa, and has a plumed helmet at her feet. As Goddess of Wisdom, her foot rests on some books surmounted by an owl. She is seated on a globe in the form of an armillary sphere.

This enamel is unique in several respects. Inscribed on the reverse, 'Jehan de Court ma faict 1555', it is the only fully signed and dated piece by the artist. The positioning of the inscription on the reverse is unusual at this period. Jean de Court's plaque is also exceptional both in representing, in enamel, a full-length image of a contemporary court figure in the guise of a mythological deity, and, in so doing, demonstrably deriving the face of the subject from an identifiable, care fully observed portrait source.

By the mid sixteenth century, the identification of the French royal family and their circle with the deities of classical mythology was a device regularly employed by poets and artists. However, this plaque is one of the very few sixteenth-century dramatised portraits in Limoges enamel. The other examples are by or attributed to Leonard Limosin. The earliest are full length depictions of Francois I as St Thomas and Jacques de Genouillac as St Paul, attributed to Limosin and datable c. 1547. (6) Limosin also depicted Claude de Lorraine and various members of his family triumphing over identifiable heretics in an allegorical plaque, the Triumph of the Eucharist of the Catholic Faith, of c. 1550-62. (7) His other enamels of this kind place contemporaries in narratives drawn from classical mythology. The first two are dated 1555: one is a dish bearing the arms of Anne de Montmorency, (8) which depicts The gods celebrating the wedding of Psyche and Cupid after a print by the Master of the Die, (9) with court figures replacing some of the gods; (10) the other is a plaque depicting Venus and Cupid, possibly with Lady Fleming, a mistress of Henri II, in the guise of the goddess. (11) This fashion was evidently at its height in 1555, the year which saw the publication of Pierre Ronsard's 'Hynne de Henry Deuxiesme de ce nom, Roy de France', in which Henri's court is described as the new Olympus. (12) Limosin revisited the theme in 1573 74, creating a series of at least six plaques in each of which a member of the French court, in contemporary costume, is depicted as a classical deity in a celestial chariot. (13)

The depiction of Marguerite de France in the guise of Minerva was very topical in 1555. In addition to Ronsard's 'Hynne', in which the poet asks the king, 'Et n'as-tu pas aussi une Minerve sage/ Ta proper unique soeur ...' (14) Francois Billon published Le Fort Inexpugnable du Sexe Feminin, where the Marguerite/Minerva analogy was extensively developed. Described as 'une Pallas contre Ignorance armee', Marguerite was presented as the guardian of the 'Deuzieme Bastion sur la chastete et Honnestete des Femmes', an appropriate responsibility for an unmarried princess in the guise of a virgin goddess. (15)

This most erudite princess, accomplished in Latin, Greek and Italian, was repeatedly identified with the goddess by some of the greatest writers of the day during the decade from 1549 until her marriage to Emmanuel-Philibert, Duke of Savoy, in 1559, and her subsequent move to Turin. (16) The convention was instigated in 1549 by Ronsard, the most illustrious of the the Pleiade poets, when he drew a parallel between the births of Pallas, daughter of Zeus, and Marguerite, daughter of Francois 1: