Jean Perréal
1450–1530 · Kingdom of France · Renaissance, Northern Renaissance
The story
Known in his own day as Jean de Paris, Jean Perréal served three French kings in a row, Charles VIII, Louis XII and Francis I, as a portraitist, designer and organiser of court spectacle. He was the sort of all-purpose artist a Renaissance court leaned on, turning his hand to miniatures, medal designs, festival decorations and even architecture.
In 1514 he was sent across the Channel on a delicate errand. Mary Tudor, the young sister of Henry VIII of England, was to marry the ageing Louis XII, and Perréal went to advise on her wedding wardrobe so it would meet French taste, and most likely to take her likeness. Much of his painted work is now lost or argued over by scholars, so his hand survives mostly through drawings and the profile portraits that sculptors cut into royal medals after his designs.
One painting that does survive is a portrait of Charles VIII, kept today at the Musée Condé at Chantilly, north of Paris.
