Jean Fouquet, Portraitist

A copy of a portrait by Fouquet of King Charles VII of France. The original is in the Louvre.

 Fouquet was recognised very early as a master of portraiture, and it was on this basis, when he was staying in Rome that the Pope Eugene IV commissioned a portrait. This work is now lost, but is known from two partial copies, which reveal his already very personal approach to the genre, distinct from the Flemish and Italians. Two paintings in particular illustrate this quality in his work -- the portrait of King Charles VII and that of the Chancellor of France Guillaume Jouvenel des Ursins (both in the Louvre).

 

The copy in  Loches of Fouquet's Virgin and Child (modelled on Agnes Sorel), one half of the Melun diptych.

Other surviving works, in other techniques, attest to his skill as a portraitist. There is a self-portrait in enamel in the Louvre, and the subjects of the Melun diptych (one half now in Berlin, the other in Antwerp). And there are three magnificent drawings (the head of Guillaume Jouvenel des Ursins in Berlin, a portrait of a man in a hat in the Hermitage, and a portrait of a papal legate in the Metropolitan Museum New York). Plus excellent 16th century copies of other lost drawings (multiple versions of a head of Agnes Sorel in Florence and the French National Library, and a portrait of Arthur de Richemont in the French National Library). These works reveal Fouquet to be a precursor of Jean Clouet and Hans Holbein.

 

Detail of the Pieta by Fouquet in the church at Nouans les Fontaines.

 

This mastery of portraiture is even more evident in the small scale manuscripts such as the various Books of Hours he produced. Within these manuscripts the artist has introduced a new genre, the group miniature portrait, which highlights the importance of a political or social group (good examples are his illustrations of the trial of the Duke of Alençon, or Louis XI presiding over a chapter of the Order of Saint Michael).

 

Copy of Fouquet's portrait of Etienne Chevalier and Saint Stephen, one half of the Melun diptych, in  Loches.

Further Reading: Wikipedia entry on Fouquet's portrait of the court jester Gonella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_the_Court_Jester_Gonella

Happy New Year

We wish all our friends and readers a happy and healthy 2026. Above all, we need a just and lasting peace to break out globally.

 

Nous souhaitons à tous nos amis et lecteurs une année 2026 plein de bonheur et de bonne santé. Avant tout, nous avons besoin d'une paix juste et durable qui s'installe à l'échelle mondiale.

A Hellmouth in the Brenne

 Musician angels.

The church in Paulnay, to our east in Indre, houses a number of wall paintings. They were created during the 14th and 15th centuries. To the left of the entry there is a depiction of the Last Judgement. The black flames seem to spurt forth from the earth, and the Devil pushes the Damned into the fire. On the nave is a depiction of the monthly activities undertaken by people. Between the apse and the nave you can see two musician angels. The one on the left holds a rebec (a bowed stringed instrument), the one on the right a cornemuse (bagpipes). In the apse is Christ, done with intense colours and surrounded by the symbols of the four Evangelists. 

 

 Interior.

Up until May this year the paintings were badly degraded due to the humidity, and conservation action was urgently required. Luckily the Foundation du Patrimoine had stepped in and a fundraising campaign meant that work to fix the drainage and conserve the paintings commenced in May 2022.

 

 Front facade.

The church in Paulnay has been a listed Historic Monument since 1910. It was erected in the first half of the 12th century in the Poitevin Romanesque style. Its ornately carved facade and painted interior make it a particularly noteworthy church in Indre and it generates a bit of historic interest and tourist visits. Archaeological digs have also revealed its pre-medieval history, with the foundations of a 2nd century Gallo-Roman temple and Merovingian burials found. The two sarcophagi on the forecourt bear witness to the archaeology.

 

 Western door.

The small simple church has a nave but no aisles or side chapels. The earliest wall paintings are traces on the nave ceiling vault which date from the very end of the 12th century.

 

I think these carved birds around the door represent doves.

Most notable on the exterior are the carvings of mermaids and birds. The mermaids in particular are unusual motifs in Berry. Mermaids have quite a complicated symbolism and can be associated with birds; the soul separate from the body; funerary rites; virginity; demonic temptresses able to turn men away from God with their promise of love; the sins of cupidity, arrogance and luxury; and/or the perversion and destruction of men through desire. Put simply, they represent the dangers of going to sea at the time.

 

 Carved eagles on a capital on the front facade.

Paulnay is one of the communes in the Brenne Regional Natural Park. Indre is the modern 'county' (Fr. département) name for the old province of Berry. There is a well regarded workers restaurant where you can get a cheap simple lunch directly across the road from the church.

A demon pushes sinners into the flaming mouth of a monster known as the Hellmouth, symbolising the entrance to Hell.

 

Last Judgement scene. How many demons can you see? There are at least four plus the Hellmouth and the Devil himself looming large. I assume on the opposite wall there would have been a scene of the righteous ascending to Heaven, but it has been lost to the damp.

Mermaid.

Winged monsters with male human heads, eagle's claws, and coiled slug like bodies.

Carved head of a man with a forked beard, poking his tongue out.

A Recap

I watched a movie on TV last week, which gives me an opportunity to repost this from 2009:

There's this bloke right, and he's called Anthony Hopkins, and he's got the family business because his old man has dropped off the perch. He goes off on holiday to Israel with a mate called James Bond (but not that one, the one no-one remembers that isn't an Aussie).

Halfway there (they must have gone on a real cheap flight or something) James Bond gets on a different plane and goes home, yeah? He turns up at Tone's joint and buys his favorite gaff off of the brother Nigel who is house sitting. The brother is a right little toerag who was daddy's golden boy and he's running the old firm while Tone is on holiday.

Then Tone goes and gets himself banged up (airrage probably - he was a bit of a nutter) in Australia or somewhere and doesn't find out about all this until he gets out. When he gets home, he goes ballistic, gets a gang of mates, and does some serious head kicking. Only takes him a couple of hours and he's got his feet up in front of the telly. Bish bash bosh, lovely job.

Then he goes and pegs it and Nige the toad gets the whole deal - lock stock and barrel. Couple of years later there's a turf war kicks off what's really been going for ages ever since Peter O'Toole (that's the dad) married the James Bond bloke's old man's ex. She was a seppo called Katherine Hepburn.

So James Bond, yeah, rocks up with a bunch of mates at Tone's old gaff what Nige has now got but isn't at coz he is off taking care of business in Notts Forest (he spent loads of time giving some grief to Douglas Fairbanks, who sometimes looked like Kevin Costner). Takes him a year hanging around outside and shouting and chucking stuff about before he gets the keys. Turns out all to be a waste of time, because he didn't like the place much, and ends up giving it to a different mate who was the Italian geezer who was actually running the show.

History eh? You gotta concentrate.

Simon

For the terminally confused, this might help.

Turkey at Christmas in France

Stuffed roast turkey is a dish that might be prepared for Christmas Eve in France. It's not something that everyone will choose but Christmas is the only time in France that you can find whole turkeys for roasting. 

 

A turkey in my local butchery. Just a few kilos in weight, and certified Label Rouge, which is the most trusted independent poultry quality certification in France, ensuring good welfare standards and the best husbandry practices.

Traditionally the main Christmas meal would have been poultry of some sort, usually goose. This is a hangover from pagan winter solstice festivities, where the goose represented the Sun dying in winter before rising again, Phoenix-like, guaranteeing protection to those who eat it.

The Spanish brought turkeys to Europe, and by 1570 their reputation as a delicious treat was established. These first turkeys were called 'poule d'Inde' (Indian hen) in France as they were believed to have come from India. 

 

Turkeys in one of the local supermarkets the week before Christmas. Under 4 kilos, 6 euros a kilo, from a well known large scale producer.

The turkey surplanted the goose at Christmas because it represented an exotic fowl that because of its rarity was only eaten at the most important feasts.

The first turkey served in France at a banquet was at the wedding feast of Charles IX and Eleanor of Austria in 1570.

Chestnut stuffing for turkey is traditional in France.

A White Christmas

France Météo and social media had been predicting snow for lowland central France for a couple of days. I'd passed the départemental (county) snowplough heading in the opposite direction to me on Tuesday. The weather got very cold and windy on Christmas Eve. 

 

 View from our attic at 9 am.

Simon came to bed at a quarter past midnight on Christmas Eve and said there had been a light dusting. I got up at 8 am on Christmas Day and looked out our bedroom window. It wasn't properly light yet, but I could see enough to be disappointed. The street gutters were lined with snow, but the road surface was bare.

 

Our front courtyard, as photographed by me in my pyjamas at 8 am.

Nevertheless, I checked out the spare bedroom window just in case. This faces west, over our neighbours yard and across a small valley with village houses. Much better! All the roofs were covered in snow, as were our neighbour's cars and lawn. I took several photos then went upstairs to try my luck from the attic.

 

Our backyard at 8 am, with half our recent firewood delivery under a snow covered tarp, waiting for me to stack it in the garage out of the weather.

The local news media are saying that it has been 14 years since we had a white Christmas in the Touraine. That would make it 2011, but looking back on the blog, we made no mention of snow, so I suspect it did not snow in Preuilly on Christmas Day itself. It certainly did snow that year on other dates and close to Christmas. So this year has been my first white Christmas. 

By mid-afternoon all the snow had gone.