
Poppy Harvey-Jones
Head of Sale
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£5,000 - £7,000
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Head of Sale
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).