Equestrian Portrait of Francis I

When François Clouet painted this small panel around 1540, Francis I had been king of France for about 25 years, and he was the ruler who had pulled the Italian Renaissance north across the Alps. It was Francis who coaxed the aging Leonardo da Vinci to settle in France, where the old master spent his last years and died at Amboise in 1519. Here the king rides in armour, the image of a warrior on campaign. The surprise is the size. The panel is barely larger than a sheet of paper, closer to a collector's keepsake than a state portrait meant to fill a wall. Clouet knew this face well. He had grown up inside the French court and taken over as royal painter from his father, Jean Clouet, so the king's features here come from years of close study rather than a single sitting.