Gabrielle d'Estrées and One of Her Sisters

There have been at least four double portraits of Gabrielle d'Estrées with one of her sisters. Gabrielle was the longtime mistress of the French King Henry IV in the 1590's and they had four children together.  These intriguing double portraits has long fascinated art historians.  The exact painter or painters are unknown and they are referred as being part of the 'School of Fontainebleau' a 16th century French style which blended elements from both the Italian and Flemish schools of painting.  Gabrielle had two sisters, the Duchess de Villars and Madame de Balagny, it is not known for certain which of the two were in the double portraits with her.


All of the portraits are painted with the subjects sitting together nude in a bathtub with a red curtain behind them. A red curtain was often shown in Flemish and Dutch painting as surrounding a bed so the curtain likely represents the sphere of the bedroom while the bathtub allows the sisters to be shown nude.  The ‘Fontainebleau’ style can be seen in the Italianate modeling of their figures and in the Flemish attention to detail and stylized faces.These were likely painted for the king and meant to be hung in a place where King Henry IV would see them rather than somewhere the public would view the work.

Gabrielle d'Estrées and One of Her Sisters, School of Fontainebleau, Uffizi, c-1590's

While there are similarities between these, each of the three focus on a different theme.  In the first to be discussed there is no background other than the red curtain.  Gabrielle, the lighter haired sister on the right, gives her sister a ring.  Does the ring refer to a marriage? Or perhaps instead to the coronation ring of Henry?  While Gabrielle and Henry were never married to each other, as Henry was already married, it could also refer to a symbol of fidelity on the part of Gabrielle.  Or instead to an impending marriage of the sister. 

Perhaps the most famous shows one sister pinching the breast of the other, an oddly provocative gesture that is widely thought to be an allusion to Gabrielle being pregnant with the first of her children with the king.  Adding to that theory is the woman in the background sewing by the hearth who is probably making a blanket for the baby. There is also a hint of a painting within a painting in the red draped nude legs of a figure in the painting above the fireplace which seem to allude to love and romance.

The picture is dated based on the year of birth of César de Bourbon, the later Duke of Vendôme, the first son the couple had together in 1594.  In this painting both sisters have pearl earrings and are wearing no other jewelry, however Gabrielle again holds a ring.

Gabrielle d'Estrées and One of Her Sisters, School of Fontainebleau, Louvre, c-1594

The picture is dated based on the year of birth of César de Bourbon, the later Duke of Vendôme, the first son the couple had together in 1594.

The third and fourth painting are essentially the same style with two variations, one depicts the sisters nude and the other depicts them dressed in gauzy material.  The baby being nursed by a wet nurse in the background of both works is assumed to be César as an infant.



Gabrielle d'Estrées and One of Her Sisters, 
School of Fontainebleau, Chateau de Fontainebleau, c-1590's



 Portrait Presumed to be Gabrielle 
d’Estrées and the Duchess de Villars in the Bath, School of Fontainebleau

Montpellier, Musée Languedocien,1590's

© Musée de la Société Archéologique, Montpellier

A Lady in Her Bath, François Clouet, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C, c--1571

A work painted twenty years earlier likely inspired the style and composition of all the Gabrielle d'Estrées portaits.  François Clouet painted the work of a woman in her bath in around 1570, twenty years earlier.  While there are varying thoughts on who the woman is, it is thought to also be a portrait of a king’s mistress.  The work was long attributed as a portrait of Diane de Poitiers, the famous mistress of King Henry II (which would date it to the 1550’s).

However it is now thought to be a portrait of Marie Touchet, the mistress of King Charles IX of France.  This work by François Clouet had an obvious stylistic influence upon the Gabrielle d'Estrées portraits. It also contains the red curtain framing the scene, the subject nude in a bathtub and two elements in the background reappear in the later works.  

The wet nurse is reproduced identically in the background of the two similar paintings and the large white hearth appears in the other.  The figure of the main subject is also similar in style and appearance.  Here as in the two versions of the painting with Gabrielle, the king's mistress wears a pearl necklace.  Pearls symbolized many things in the Renaissance including hidden wisdom, purity and patience.

The subject in the Lady in Her Bath looks more like a type of person than an actual portrait as her features are stylized rather than individualistic.  The type being an elegant female nude suitable as the mistress of a king.  The artist François Clouet was the son of a well known Flemish portrait painter, Jean Clouet.

All of these works share the graceful elegance of the Mannerist style of painting and sculpture from the 'School of Fontainebleau.'  Italian Mannerist painters of the early 16^th century fled Italy after the 1526 sack of Rome and went to the French court, in addition to Paris the king spent much time at the Chateau of Fontainebleau.  A few years later when the Florentine Catherine de Medici married King Henry II there was an additional need for Italian Mannerist artists at the French court.  The style stayed popular through much of the 16^thcentury.  Italian artists who worked in France at that time included Rosso Fiorentino and Benevenuto Cellini.

Today the style of the double portraits of Gabrielle d'Estrées continue to captivate the viewer.

10 Hidden Self Portraits

A tradition emerged in the Renaissance for the painter to hide a self portrait of themselves in the background of the painting.  Let's look at ten examples of this.

#1- Raphael in The School of Athens

Raphael painted this fresco in the papal apartments at the Vatican at the same time that Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel.  The pope at the time was Pope Julius II and he was having Raphael paint a series of large paintings in all the Papal apartments.

Raphael, School of Athens, 1509-10, Stanza della Segnatura, Papal Apartments, Vatican Museum

The fresco, now known as The School of Athens, shows a variety of famous figures in a classical setting.  Raphael used several of his contemporaries who were artists to represent famous ancient Greek scholars, philosophers, scientists and mathematicians. Among them (circled in red below) are Leonardo da Vinci in the center, Michelangelo seated and a self portrait of Raphael at the far right.

Raphael is looking out at the viewer in a hidden self-portrait, a style that already had a long history in the Renaissance as we can see in some earlier examples.

#2- Lorenzo Ghiberti in The Gates of Paradise

Lorenzo Ghiberti's beautiful bronze set of doors, his second set for the Baptistery of Florence which hung on the east side were dubbed 'The Gates of Paradise' by fellow Florentine Michelangelo.  The viewer would primarily be paying attention to any of the ten large biblical scenes portrayed on the doors.  However Ghiberti actually hid two small self-portraits of himself in the decoration between the large panels. 



The first was a portrait of himself as he looked at the current time, and the second was of him as a young boy looking towards a small portrait of his mother.

Ghiberti, Gates of Paradise, Florence Baptistery, 1425-52

Ghiberti, Gates of Paradise, Florence Baptistery, 1425-52

Andrea Mantegna, The Meeting, Camera degli Sposi, Mantua, 1465-74

Detail with Self-Portrait

#3- Andrea Mantegna in the Camera degli Sposi

Andrea Mantegna is perhaps best known for his 'Camera degli Sposi' (Wedding Chamber) also known as the 'Camera Picta' (Painted Room) in the Ducal Palace in Mantua.  The rooms has frescos along the walls and the ceiling.  Just as Ghiberti did, Mantegna hid a small self portrait among the decorative bands.  Both the painted wall showing the well known meeting scene and a detail of the decorative band are shown above.


#4-  Botticelli in The Adoration of the Magi

Botticelli painted more than one version of the Adoration of the Magi, this one was painted in 1475.

Botticelli, Adoration of the Magi, Uffizi Museum, 1475

Botticelli is thought to be the figure at the far right, looking out at the viewer as seen in the detail below.  Just as in the later Raphael painting the figure is at the far right, and rather than taking part in the action of the painting he is staring out to the viewer's space.  This is a style that would be repeated by other Italian Renaissance painters.

Detail of Botticelli's Self-Portrait in the Adoration of the Magi

#5- Fillipino Lippi in The Dispute with Simon Magus

Lippi, The Dispute with Simon Magus (1481–1482) Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence

The Dispute with Simon Magus (1481–1482) is a fresco in the Brancacci Chapel in the Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, Italy.  The Brancacci Chapel is famous for being the chapel where Masaccio and Masolino first used one point perspective in painting.  The frescos all show scenes from the life of St. Peter.  Lippi studied under Botticelli and this self-portrait has several similarities in the way it is portrayed as Botticelli's in the Adoration of the Magi.

Detail of Lippi self-portrait in The Dispute with Simon Magus in the Brancacci Chapel

#6- Michelangelo in The Last Judgement 

The Last Judgement was painted in 1537-41, he started painting it in the Sistine Chapel 25 years after he had finished painting his famous ceiling frescos.  The act of painting in fresco, especially at the enormous scale of the Sistine Chapel left the artist feeling worn out and drained.  He lets the viewer know as much by including a hidden, and rather grotesque, self-portrait as the flayed skin of St. Bartholomew.  St. Bartholomew is sitting on a cloud just below and to the right of Christ and is holding his flayed skin as a symbol of his own martyrdom. 

Michelangelo, The Last Judgement, 1537-41, Sistine Chapel, Vatican

#7- Sofonisba Anguissola in Bernardino Campi Painting Sofonisba Anguissola 

This work dates from the late 1550's and is less a hidden self-portrait than a unique variant on other self portraits.  This painting both showed her own self-portrait and showed the fact that a well known artist had painted her.  However it was extremely clever as it wasn't presented as a straight self-portrait.  The artist even convincingly uses two painting styles to differentiate a person from a painted person.

Anguissola, Bernardino Campi Painting Sofonisba Anguissola, 1550's,

#8- Pontormo in the Deposition of Christ from the Cross

Pontormo, Deposition of Christ, 1525-28, Santa Felicita, Florence

What is interesting about Pontormo is that he used his own face to model the majority of his faces on, so there are echos of his features in several figures in both this work and others.  Just as in several of his Florentine Renaissance predecessors he paints himself at the far right and looking out at the viewer. 

This painting is from 1525-28 and was painted in the new style of Mannerism which followed the Italian High Renaissance and was inspired by Michelangelo. 

9- Caravaggio in David with the Head of Goliath 

This painting done in 1609–1610 has another type of grotesque hidden self-portrait.  Caravaggio painted in his own features as those of the severed head of the giant Goliath.  We know that Caravaggio, whose given name was Michelangelo Merisi, was inspired by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling since the famous gesture of Adam in the ceiling fresco show up in his Calling of St. Matthew.  Perhaps he was also influenced by his macabre self-portrait from the Last Judgement when he painted this hidden self-portrait.

Caravaggio, David with the Head of Goliath, 1609-10, Borghese Gallery, Rome

 

10- Velázquez in Las Meninas

Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas, 1656, The Prado, Madrid

Velázquez painted Las Meninas in 1656 while he was the royal court painter for the King of Spain, King Philip IV.  This is one of the best known and most analyzed paintings in art history.  The subject of the work is the princess, Infanta Margarita Teresa and her attendants.  However there are several figures hidden in the painting and the most prominent of those is the painter himself, in partial shadow working at his easel to the left.

The reason that he has included himself in this work has been often discussed, is this a type of artistic calling card, a way to show his importance at court, does he feel he is part of the royal family or is he simply painting a realistic version of all that goes on in the day to day life in the royal court?  Maybe he knows he is creating a slight illusion for the viewer and is giving us a puzzle to sort out.

There are many more hidden self portraits in art history, a clever way for the painter to leave their mark upon their work and include themselves in the interesting scenes they portray.