Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/592

 562 Painting wonderful delicacy. Besides the portraits of Henri II., of Henri IV. as a child, of the Duke of Guise, le Balafre, of the wise chancellor Michel de VHopital, all of his school, there are two small compositions formed by several por- traits in a group ; one is of the Marriage of Margaret of Lorraine, sister of the Guises, with Duke Anne of Joyeuse ; the other is a Court Ball, at which Henri III., then king, his mother, Catherine de Medicis, young Henry of Navarre, and other personages of the time, are present. These pictutes'^hich are as valuable to the history of France as the chronicles of Monstrelet or the journals of L'Estoile, 'are no less precious to the history of painting as the memorials of an art of which they were the earliest expres- sion. In Hampton Court there are portraits by Clouet of Mary Queen of Scots and Francis II. of France, as Dauphin ; and at Castle Howard, there is a fine painting by him, of the Family of Henri II., giving life-size portraits of Catherine de Medicis and her children, and a collection of nearly three hundred portraits — drawings in black and white with flesh tints — of kings and queens and important personages of the French Court. A Mans por- trait by him is in the National Gallery, and examples of his art are in the galleries of Hertford House, and Althorp. Jean Cousin (1501 — 1589) was born at Soucy, near Sens. Unfortunately, he was more occupied with painting church windows than with his easel ; and, as he devoted a part of his time to engraving, sculpture and literature, he has left but a small number of pictures. His principal work is a Last Judgment, and it is doubtless the similarity of subject rather than of style which has given its author the name of the " French Michelangelo." Although it was the first picture by a French artist which had the honour