IFE OF CHARLES IX.

_Francois Clouet._]

The two years' sojourn of Solario in France at the invitation of the
Cardinal of Amboise, of Da Vinci at the solicitation of Louis XII.,
and the foundation of the school of Fontainebleau in 1530 by Rosso
(1496-1540), Primaticcio (1504-1570), and Nicolo dell' Abbate
(1512-1571), mark the eclipse of whatever schools of French painting
were then existing; for the grand manner and dramatic power of the
Italians, fostered by royal patronage, carried all before them. This
room possesses by Rosso, known as Maitre Roux, 1485, a Pieta, and
1486, The Challenge of the Pierides, and Primaticcio is represented by
some admirable drawings exhibited in cases in the centre of the room.
Readers of Vasari will remember numerous references in his pages to
Italian artists who went to serve, and agents employed to buy Italian
works for, the _gran re Francesco nel suo luogo di Fontainebleo_.
But the sterility of the Fontainebleau school may be inferred from the
fact that when Marie de' Medici desired to have the walls of the
Luxembourg royally decorated, she was compelled to have recourse to a
foreigner, Rubens. Neglecting for a moment Room XII. and turning to

ROOM XIII.

we come upon some charming works by the brothers Lenain, whom Felibien
dismisses in a few lines, while giving scores of pages to artists
whose names and works have long been forgotten. So little is known of
the brothers Antoine and Louis, who died in 1648, and Matthieu, who
survived them nearly thirty years, that critics have only partially
succeeded in differentiating their works, which are usually exhibited
under their united names. Obviously dominated by the Netherland
masters, their manner is yet pervaded by essentially French
qualities--a love of Nature and a certain atmosphere of poetry and
gentleness alien to the Flemish and Dutch schools. Nine of their works
are here seen. A Smithy, 540; Peasants playing at Cards, 546; and
Return from Haymaking, 542, are good examples. Skied in this room is
976, portrait of Louis XIII. by Simon Vouet (1590-1649), leader of the
new academic French school of the seventeenth century, an artist of
prodigious activity and master of the army of court painters who
served Louis XIV. Vouet, who had worked in Italy, acquired there the
grand and spacious manner of the later Venetians, which was admirably
adapted to the decorative requirements of his royal patrons. To his
pupil, Eustache Lesueur (16