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Follower of Jean Clouet (Brussels 1486-1540 Paris) The Head of Christ 12.4 cm. (4 3/4in.) diameter image 1
Follower of Jean Clouet (Brussels 1486-1540 Paris) The Head of Christ 12.4 cm. (4 3/4in.) diameter image 2
Lot 2*

Follower of Jean Clouet
(Brussels 1486-1540 Paris)
The Head of Christ 12.4 cm. (4 3/4in.) diameter

5 December 2018, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

£5,000 - £7,000

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Follower of Jean Clouet (Brussels 1486-1540 Paris)

The Head of Christ
oil on a turned panel, tondo
12.4 cm. (4 3/4in.) diameter

Footnotes

Provenance
With Frost and Reed, London, 2 July 1952 (according to a label on the reverse)
The Collection of the Earl Poulett, and thence by descent to the late owner


The present work is closely related to a work depicting Francis I as Christ now in the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Ohio (inv.no. 48.3). This latter work shows the King as Christ, head and shoulders, in a painted tondo with a lengthy Latin inscription in which Pontius Pilate recounts the trial of Jesus of Nazareth to the Emperor Tiberius.

In his 1976 article 'New Light on Jean Clouet as a Portrait Painter', Paul Wescher was the first to suggest that the Columbus painting may be a portrait of King Francis I in the guise of Christ (see: Apollo, vol. CIII, no. 167, January 1976 pp. 16-21) given the close physical resemblance in particular to a portrait of Francis in the Musée Condé of circa 1515-16 (acc. no. PE-241).

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