The Tudors Arrive in Paris

The Tudors--their portraits, more precisely--are on exhibition at the Musee du Luxembourg in Paris. From Time Out magazine:

Family drama, throne politics, religious quarrels, beheadings and sumptuous clothing ensured that the Tudor dynasty was anything but dull. This exhibition by the Réunion des Musées Nationaux in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery looks beyond stiff-backed royal portraits to explore how the fact and fiction of the dynasty have merged in our collective cultural consciousness – so compelling are tales of Henry VIII, his six unfortunate wives, Bloody Mary and The Virgin Queen that the Tudor dynasty has been a rich source of drama for writers and directors ever since.

There's an impressive collection of Renaissance portraits by Nicholas Hilliard, Joos van Cleve, Hans Holbein and more, set alongside film and book extracts that emphasise the dynasty’s legendary status through the ages. Everyone from Shakespeare to Gioacchino Rossini and Shekhar Kapur seems to have tried their hand at fictionalising the family dramas, and the Tudors captured the French imagination too, in the writings of Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas and paintings by Paul Delaroche. This is the first exhibition about the dynasty in France, and it highlights a mutual fascination and power play between French and English royals: from the friendly rivalry between Francois I and Henry VIII to Elizabeth I’s cordial relationship with Catherine de Médicis as the two countries’ foreign policies drew closer and closer together.

The National Portrait Gallery in London has this input into the development of the exhibition:

In 1523 Henry VIII’s troops, lead by Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, made a bold - but ultimately unsuccessful - move to take Paris and reclaim the French throne for the English king. Nearly five hundred years later, Henry VIII is finally making it to Paris.

In partnership with the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, the Gallery is co-presenting an exhibition on the Tudor dynasty at the Musée du Luxembourg. This exciting collaboration extends the research undertaken for ‘The Real Tudors’ to consider Anglo-French relations and artistic exchange in the sixteenth century. The scale of the exhibition has also offered the opportunity to incorporate a number of important international loans and to look beyond portraiture to the broader material culture of the English renaissance.

When developing this exhibition with Tarnya Cooper and Cécile Maisonneuve, it became evident that presenting the Tudors in Paris meant that the dynasty could also be considered in a very different context to that provided by the National Portrait Gallery – that of ‘La République française’. For the Tudors have a French ‘history’ too, created by the writers, artists and composers of the nineteenth century, such as Victor Hugo, Eugène Devéria and Camille Saint-Saëns. This has allowed us to consider the notion of ‘The Real Tudors’ from an entirely different standpoint – Une dynastie. Une légende.

The timing is also perfect, for 2015 marks the 500th anniversary of the accession of François Ier. Henry’s greatest rival will be celebrated in an exhibition at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and in terms of cultural competition their presentation in Paris will perhaps capture something of the magnificence of their meeting in 1520 at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Information about the BNF's exhibition mentioned above may be found here. It's at the huge newer library on the Seine, named for Francois-Mitterand.

"For Which the Queen Prayed": Claude of France's Prayer Book

In The Wall Street Journal, Barrymore Laurence Scherer reviews an important exhibition of Queen Claude of France's prayer book and book of hours at The Morgan Library and Museum in New York City:

The illuminations in Claude's prayer book are imbued with richly layered symbolism not just relating to holy writ, but to the queen herself, especially to her persistent anxieties about bearing healthy sons. The central example of this symbolism is the book's only full-page image without text, a glowing painting of the Holy Trinity. "The Trinity," on the left-hand page of the opening, is complemented by an illumination of adoring choirs of angels on the right-hand page. Images of the Trinity usually depict the Dove of the Holy Spirit hovering over a white-bearded God the Father and Christ the Son either on or with the cross or bearing the stigmata of his Crucifixion. This one differs significantly—wearing identical purple robes, the Father and the Son resemble youthful twins. Moreover Jesus (on the left) bears no stigmata. This is the Christ who has not yet assumed flesh on Earth via the Immaculate Conception, explains Mr. Wieck, author of the splendid exhibition book (which includes a contribution by conservator Francisco H. Trujillo). The Father, steadying a golden-clasped book on his lap, gestures in benediction. Christ, with eyes lowered, places his left hand on the book, raising his right hand in affirmation. The implication here, explains Mr. Wieck, is that Christ will obey his Father's command to descend to Earth to suffer for humanity's sins. And in the blue cloud below the figures, an almost microscopic vignette of spires and towers represents the unredeemed world at that moment.

The symbolism extends further: Although the prayer book's other illuminations are all rectilinear, "Trinity" is oval. And it is framed differently than the others. Nearly every image in the book is framed by a cordelière, a rope motif adopted as an armorial device from the rope belt worn by Franciscan monks. Most pages are framed by Queen Claude's personal cordelière, running a rectangular course around each page and tightly knotted at the top, bottom and sides. But the cordelière framing "Trinity" is arranged in open loops—King Francis's armorial device. Thus the complete symbolism of this single page is that as God bestowed his Son upon mankind, so may he bestow a son and heir upon Francis and his queen. Even the painting's oval shape possibly symbolizes the fertility for which Claude prayed.

Queen Claude was Francois I's first wife. Both Mary Boleyn and Anne Boleyn had attended her as they remained in France after Louis XII, Mary Tudor's first husband, died. (This Mary Tudor was Henry VIII's favorite sister). Queen Claude and Catherine of Aragon met at The Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. Queen Claude died when she was 24 years old after bearing Francois seven children, including his heir, who would reign as Henri II. Francois remarried after Claude's death, becoming betrothed to Charles V's sister while he was held prisoner in Spain after the Battle of Pavia.

Note that for those of us who cannot go to New York City to see the exhibition, we can view the prayer book on line here.