exquisite completeness of
the whole portrait. He must have been a man of high intelligence, and of
great penetration, intensely interested in his work, and with
considerable ability to represent the character of his sitter in his
portraits. His colouring is perhaps not specially remarkable, nor from
the point of style can his pictures be considered specially beautiful,
but in perfection of drawing he has hardly any equal.

To Monsieur Louis Dimier, the leading authority upon his works, and to
his volume on _French Painting in the Sixteenth Century_, as well as
to the works of MM. Bouchot, La Borde and Maulde-La Claviere, the
present writer is indebted for the information contained in this
article. (G. C. W.)

CLOUET, JEAN (d. c. 1541). French miniature painter, generally known as
JANET. The authentic presence of this artist at the French court is
first to be noted in 1516, the second year of the reign of Francis I. By
a deed of gift made by the king to the artist's son of his father's
estate, which had escheated to the crown, we learn that he was not
actually a Frenchman, and never even naturalized. He is supposed to have
been a native of the Low Countries, and probably his real name was
Clowet. His position was that of groom of the chamber to the king, and
he received a stipend at first of 180 livres and later of 240. He lived
several years in Tours, and there it was he met his wife, who was the
daughter of a jeweller. He is recorded as living in Tours in 1522, and
there is a reference to his wife's residence in the same town in 1523,
but in 1529 they were both settled in Paris, probably in the
neighbourhood of the parish of Ste Innocent, in the cemetery of which
they were buried. He stood godfather at a christening on the 8th of July
1540, but was no longer living in December 1541, and therefore died
between those two dates.

His brother, known as CLOUET DE NAVARRE, was in the service of
Marguerite d'Angouleme, sister of Francis I., and is referred to in a
letter written by Marguerite about 1529. Jean Clouet had two children,
Francois and Catherine, who married Abel Foulon, and left one son, who
continued the profession of Francois Clouet after his decease. Jean
Clouet was undoubtedly a very skilful portrait painter, but it must be
acknowledged without hesitation that there is no work in existence which
has been proved to be his. There is no doubt that he painted a portrait
of the mathematician