Francis I, King of France

This is usually dated to around 1530, a few years after the worst moment of Francis I's reign. In 1525 he had been captured in battle at Pavia in northern Italy and held prisoner in Madrid for about a year. The man in this portrait gives nothing of that away. He is shown half-length in striped white and black satin trimmed with gold, one hand on the hilt of his sword, against a red damask hanging patterned with crowns. The painting belonged to the king himself, and it stayed in the royal collections ever since. For a long time the royal inventories listed it as anonymous. The Louvre now gives it to Jean Clouet, his court painter, and leaves room for a second hand, that of Clouet's son François, who later took over his father's post.