An outstanding and rare survival of a fifteenth-century French work on paper, this drawing is the work of painter and illuminator Jean Fouquet, whose home city of Tours was the preferred residence of the French royal court. It is inscribed, "a Roman legate of our Holy Father in France." Recent scholarship by Claudia Märtel has plausibly proposed the subject as Alain (IV) de Coëtivy (1407–1474), Cardinal of Saint Praxedes in Rome from 1448. He acted as papal legate of Callixtus III to France from 1451–53 and from 1454–55.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Portrait of Alain de Coëtivy (1407–1474)
Artist:Jean Fouquet (French, Tours ca. 1425–ca. 1478 Tours)
Date:ca. 1451–55
Medium:Metalpoint, black chalk on white prepared paper
Dimensions:7 13/16 x 5 5/16 in. (19.8 x 13.5 cm.)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Purchase, Rogers Fund and Gift of Mrs. Benjamin Knower, Bequest of Ogden Mills, and Bequest of Collis P. Huntington, by exchange, 1949
Object Number:49.38
Inscription: Inscribed in metalpoint, at upper right: "Ung Roumain/ legat de n [?]/ . . . St pere/ en France"; in pen and brown ink on verso, "37/ BAC no.31"; in graphite: "P.HL./ Prosper Henry Lankrinck/ Page to King Charles I./ Collector."
Prosper Henry Lankrink (British); John Postle Heseltine (British); Henry Oppenheimer (British); his sale, Christie's, London, July 10, 13–14, 1936, lot 428 (£10,710 to Duveen); Vendor: Lord Duveen
Paris. Musée du Louvre. "L'Exposition des primitifs français, Louvre, 1904," 1904.
London. Burlington Fine Arts Club. "Drawings of Deceased Masters, Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1917," 1917.
Palais National des Arts, Paris. "Chefs d'oeuvre de l'art français, Paris, Palais National des Arts, 1937," 1937.
Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. "Golden Gate International Exhibition, San Francisco, 1940," 1940.
Cambridge, Mass. Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums. "Seventy Master Drawings (A loan exhibition arranged in honor of Professor Paul J. Sachs on the occasion of his seventieth birthday)," November 27, 1948–January 6, 1949.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Diamond Jubilee Exhibition, Masterpieces of Drawing," November 4, 1950–February 11, 1951.
Pittsburgh. Carnegie Institute. "French Painting, 1100-1900, Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, 1951," October 18, 1951–December 2, 1951.
Cleveland Museum of Art. "French Drawings. Masterpieces from Five Centuries, National Gallery, D.C., 1952," December 9, 1952–January 10, 1953.
Saint Louis Art Museum. "French Drawings. Masterpieces from Five Centuries, National Gallery, D.C., 1952," January 18–February 16, 1953.
Cambridge, Mass. Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums. "French Drawings. Masterpieces from Five Centuries, National Gallery, D.C., 1952," February 23–March 8, 1953.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "French Drawings. Masterpieces from Five Centuries, National Gallery, D.C., 1952," March 20–April 19, 1953.
Cleveland Museum of Art. "Treasures from Medieval France, Cleveland Museum of Art," November 16, 1967–January 29, 1968.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries," November 14, 1970–June 1, 1971.
Paris. Musée du Louvre. "Jean Fouquet," January 16, 1981–April 19, 1981.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "15th–18th Century French Drawings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 18, 1986–January 4, 1987.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," August 21–November 26, 1995.
Paris. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. "Jean Fouquet, Peintre et enlumineur du XVe siecle," March 24, 2003–June 15, 2003.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. "Drawing in Silver and Gold: Leonardo to Jasper Johns," May 3–July 26, 2015.
London. The British Museum. "Drawing in Silver and Gold: Leonardo to Jasper Johns," September 10–December 6, 2015.
Bean and Turcic 1986.110
Henri Bouchot L'Exposition des primitifs français, la peinture en France sous les Valois. Paris, 1904, cat. no. 44, fig. no. pl. XXXVIII, p. 20, ill.
Georges Lefenestre Jean Fouquet. Paris, 1905, pp. 71, 27, ill.
Grafton Galleries, London National Loan Exhibition Exh. cat. Grafton Galleries. London, 1909-1910, cat. no. 119, p. 113.
Max J. Friedländer Preussiche Jahrbücher. vol. 31, 1910, fig. no. 2, pp. 227-230, ill.
The Vasari Society for the Reproduction of Drawings by Old Masters: part 9 first series (1905-15). The Vasari Society for the Reproduction of Drawings by Old Masters, 1913-14, cat. no. 25, ill.
Drawings of Deceased Masters. Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1917, cat. no. 64, p. 22.
Le Dessin français du XIII au XVI siècle. Paris, 1930, fig. no. pl. 19, pp. 19, 70, ill.
Trenchard Cox Jean Fouquet, Native of Tours. London, 1931, fig. no. pl. 50, pp. 55, 133, ill.
Commemorative Catalogue of the Exhibition of French Art, 1200-1900
January - March, 1932. Royal Academy of Arts, Oxford and London, 1933, cat. no. 541, fig. no. pl. 149, p. 121, ill.
Pantheon. vol. 18, July 1936, p. 328, ill.
Palais National des Arts, Paris Chefs d'oeuvre de l'art français Exh. cat. Paris, 1937, cat. no. 437, fig. no. pl. 91, ill.
Klaus G. Perls Jean Fouquet . . .. Paris, 1940, fig. no. pl. 282, p. 22, ill.
Golden Gate International Exhibition, Official Catalogue of Art. Exh. cat. Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, 1940, cat. no. 432a, pp. 94, 103, ill.
Charles Sterling La peinture française. Les peintres du moyen age. 1, Paris, 1941, cat. no. 6, fig. no. pl. 54, p. 18, ill.
Charles Sterling "Book review of Klaus Perl's Jean Fouquet, Paris, 1940." Art Bulletin. vol. 38, June 1946, p. 129.
Hans Tietze European Master Drawings in the United States. J. J. Augustin, New York, 1947, cat. no. 5, pp. 10-11, ill.
One Hundred Master Drawings. To accompany "Seventy master drawings," a loan exhibition at the Fogg Museum of Art, Nov. 1948-Jan. 1949, held on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Paul J. Sachs, and 30 additional drawings from the museum's collections
Exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge. edited by Agnes Mongan, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1949, pp. 12, 13, ill.
Grete Ring A Century of French Painting, 1400-1500. London, 1949, cat. no. 139, fig. no. pl. 92, p. 241, ill.
"Eightieth Annual Report of the Trustees for the year 1949: Reports of the Departments." in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.s. vol. 9, New York, Summer 1950, p. 27, ill.
"The Picture Galley and the Print Room." A Report to the Trustees on the Buildings and Growth of the Collections. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.s. vol. 8, no. 10, New York, June 1950, p. 302.
Masterpieces of Drawing: Diamond Jubilee Exhibition Philadelphia Museum of Art, November 4, 1950–February 11, 1951. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 1950, no. 10, ill.
Regina Shoolman, Charles E. Slatkin Six Centuries of French Master Drawings in America. Oxford University Press, New York, 1950, fig. no. pl. 2, p. 4, ill.
French Painting, 1100-1900 Exh. cat. Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, October 18-December 2, 1951, cat. no. 130, ill.
Art Treasures of the Metropolitan: A Selection from the European and Asiatic Collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 1952, cat. no. 61, fig. no. 61, pp. 68, 222, ill.
L'Association Française d'Action Artistique, Smithsonian Institution French Drawings, Masterpieces from Five Centuries. A loan exhibition, cirulated to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Cleveland Museum of Art; the City Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1952, cat. no. 3, fig. no. pl. 2, ill.
"MMA Bulletin" French Drawings. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 17, no. 6, New York, February 1959, p. 164, ill.
Jacob Bean 100 European Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1964, cat. no. 51, ill.
William D. Wixom Treasures from Medieval France. Exh. cat., Cleveland Museum of Art, 1967. Cleveland, 1967, cat. no. 8, p. 308, ill.
Sir Kenneth Clark Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries. Exh. cat., November 14, 1970 - February 14, 1971. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, E. P. Dutton and Company, New York, 1970, cat. no. 168, p. 189.
Robert Beverly Hale, Terence Coyle Anatomy Lessons from the Great Masters. New York, 1977, pp. 208-209, ill.
Terisio Pignatti Il disegno: da Altamira a Picasso. Milan, 1981, p. 100, ill.
Jacob Bean, Lawrence Turčić 15th-18th Century French Drawings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1986, cat. no. 110, p. 107, ill.
Philip Conisbee "New York French Drawings [exhibition review]." The Burlington Magazine. vol. 128, London, December 1986, p. 924.
François Avril Jean Fouquet, Peintre et enlumineur du XVe siecle Exh. cat. Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, March 25 - June 22, 2003, cat. no. 13, pp. 147-48, ill.
Claudia Märtl “Kardinal Alain de Coëtivy (1407-1474): der ‘römische Legat’ des Jean Fouquet“, Et l’homme dans tout cela? Von Menschen, Mächten und Motiven: Festschrift für Heribert Müller zum 70. Geburtstag. 2017, 211-229.
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