Antoine Caron, Game of Quintain, 1575 - 1580 © The Courtauld Gallery, London.

LONDON.- This focused international loan exhibition, the first dedicated to the drawings of Antoine Caron (1521-1599), brings together a celebrated group of drawings executed for his patron Catherine de’ Medici queen of France (1519-1589). 

Centred around the Valois series, a set of drawings of courtly pageantry here reunited for the first time, the display showcases the way in which the powerful and influential Catherine promoted herself and her dynasty through a series of lavish courtly events. Though not a court artist, Caron worked at the court of the Valois family, first at the Château de Fontainebleau, and then at the Château d’Anet where Henri II’s mistress Diane de Poitiers lived. He also contributed to the designs of the ephemeral decorations for the ceremonial entry into Paris of the young King Charles IX in 1571, and two years later to the celebrations of the election of his brother Henri to the kingdom of Poland and Lithuania. In 1581, Caron was the official painter for the wedding of the king’s favourite Anne d’Arques, duc de Joyeuse. 

At the centre of this exhibition are six drawings that evoke the Valois ‘Magnificences’, complex festivals organised by the French court between 1573 and 1581, during the reigns of Catherine’s sons King Charles IX and King Henri III. The drawings capture in minute detail these events: jousts, tournaments, and a mock naval battle, that are testimony of the lavish spectacles. The compositions of the drawings were later readapted to the designs of a set of tapestries. 

These works, together with other drawings by Caron included in this display, showcase the ways in which the artist helped Catherine to achieve her goal of promoting her progeny. The importance of these drawings cannot be overemphasised, not only because of the notion that they give us invaluable insights into the fashion, behaviour, protocol and the whole apparatus of the Valois ‘Magnificences’, but especially because they witness Catherine’s insatiable desire to promote her legacy through powerful and arresting spectacles.

Antoine Caron (1521 - 1599), Portraits of Henri II and Catherine de Medici, 1560 -1574. Courtesy Louvre, Paris

Antoine Caron, Le château d’Anet, 1565–1574. Courtesy Louvre, Paris.