Marguerite de France as Minerva: a sixteenth-century Limoges painted enamel by Jean de Court in the Wallace Collection

In August 1871 Sir Richard Wallace (1818-90) acquired the extensive collection of medieval and renaissance works of art, arms and armour formed in Paris by the agency of Alfred-Emilien, Comte de Nieuwerkerke (1811 92) between 1865 and 1870 (1) single of the 'trophy' pieces in Nieuwerkerke's collection was a Limoges enamel depicting Marguerite de France (1523-74) daughter of Francois I and sister of Henri II, as the classical goddes Pallas/Minerva (Fig. 1) (2) Signed by the agency of Jean de Court and dated 1555 upon the reverse (Fig. 2), its provenance is unknown before its appearance in Nieuwerkerke's collection in 1866 (3) Nieuwerkerke knew the sitter's identity, which was recorded upon the slip of its Italian walnut frame, also now in the Wallace Collection, which dates from the early sixteenth hundred and has nineteenth-century additions (Fig. 16) (4)

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If the enamel is indeed authentic, it is of considerable significance. However, Limoges painted enamels were in great demand with wealthy collectors at this period and in new years research has produced increasing evidence of nineteenth hundred faking of renaissance-style enamels. Several unusual characteristics of Jean de Court's enamel have l to bear upon about its status. (5)

The first section of this article explores the cultural connected thought [i]or[/i] thoughts of the enamel, and--on the basis of this and of new scientific analysis (for which, diocese the Appendix by Isabelle Biron)--seeks to lay to repose doubts about its authenticity. Following upon from this, the second section discusses the manifold issue of the identity of Jean de Court and his oeuvre in which the Wallace Collection enamel plays a a lock opener role.

The enamel, measuring 209 x 158 cm is painted in polychrome opaque and translucent enamels with gold highlights and has a colourless calculator enamel. Marguerite has Minerva's attributes as Goddes of War and of Wisdom. As Goddes of War, she wears her traditional flowing robes and a breastplate, grasps a spear and a shield decorated with the head of the Gorgon Medusa, and has a fruit of the plum-treeed helmet at her feet. As Goddes of Wisdom, her lower extremity rests on some books tower aboveed by an owl. She is seated upon a globe in the form of an armillary sphere.

This enamel is unique in several venerates Inscribed on the reverse, 'Jehan de Court ma faict 1555' it is the alone fully signed and dated piece by means of the artist. The positioning of the inscription upon the reverse is unusual at this period. Jean de Court's plaque is also exceptional the couple in representing, in enamel, a full-length image of a contemporary court figure in the guise of a mythological deity, and, in with equal reason doing, demonstrably deriving the face of the control from an identifiable, care to the full observed portrait source.

by the agency of the mid sixteenth century, the identification of the French royal family and their circle with the deities of classical mythology was a device regularly exerciseed by poets and artists. However, this plaque is individual of the very few sixteenth-century dramatised portraits in Limoges enamel. The other examples are by dint of or attributed to Leonard Limosin. The earliest are filled length depictions of Francois I as St Thomas and Jacques de Genouillac as St Paul, attributed to Limosin and datable c 1547 (6) Limosin also depicted Claude de Lorraine and various members of his family triumphing above identifiable heretics in an allegorical plaque, the Triumph of the Eucharist of the Catholic Faith, of c 1550-62 (7) His other enamels of this kind place contemporaries in narratives drawn from classical mythology. The first sum of two units are dated 1555: one is a dish bearing the arms of Anne de Montmorency, (8) which depicts The the eternals celebrating the wedding of Psyche and Cupid after a print by means of the Master of the Die, (9) with court figures replacing a certain quantity of of the gods; (10) the other is a plaque depicting Venus and Cupid, possibly with Lady Fleming, a mistress of Henri II, in the guise of the goddes (11) This fashion was evidently at its height in 1555 the year which saw the publication of Pierre Ronsard's 'Hynne de Henry Deuxiesme de ce nom, Roy de France', in which Henri's court is described as the novel Olympus. (12) Limosin revisited the theme in 1573 74 creating a series of at least six plaques in each of which a member of the French court, in contemporary style of dress is depicted as a classical deity in a celestial chariot. (13)

The depiction of Marguerite de France in the guise of Minerva was actual topical in 1555. In addition to Ronsard's 'Hynne' in which the bard asks the king, 'Et n'as-tu pas aussi une Minerve sage/ Ta peculiar unique soeur ...' (14) Francois Billon published Le Fort Inexpugnable du Sexe Feminin, where the Marguerite/Minerva analogy was extensively make knowned Described as 'une Pallas contre Ignorance armee', Marguerite was neared as the guardian of the 'Deuzieme Bastion sur la chastete et Honnestete de Femmes' an appropriate responsibility for an unmarried princess in the guise of a virgin goddes (15)

This greatest in quantity erudite princess, accomplished in Latin, of greece and Italian, was repeatedly identified with the goddes through some of the greatest writers of the day during the decade from 1549 until her marriage to Emmanuel-Philibert, Duke of Savoy, in 1559 and her following move to Turin. (16) The convention was instigated in 1549 by dint of Ronsard, the most illustrious of the the Pleiade bards when he drew a parallel between the births of Pallas, daughter of Zeus, and Marguerite, daughter of Francois 1: