Portrait of Louise of Lorraine - Paul Lacroix

A nineteenth-century chromolithograph depicting Louise of Lorraine, based on a Renaissance drawing by François Clouet.

This chromolithograph depicts Louise of Lorraine, the queen consort of King Henry III of France. The print originates from the publication 'Le Moyen-Age et la Renaissance', a multi-volume work edited by Paul Lacroix that sought to document the visual culture of the medieval and Renaissance periods. The image is based on an original drawing attributed to the French Renaissance artist François Clouet, which is held in the collection of the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris.

The portrait captures the subject in a style typical of sixteenth-century French court portraiture. Louise is shown in a three-quarter view, wearing a characteristic ruff collar and a close-fitting cap. The rendering focuses on the linear precision of the original drawing, with subtle shading used to define the facial features and the folds of the fabric. The chromolithographic process, overseen by F. Sere and executed by the printer Lemercier, employs a limited colour palette to replicate the appearance of a chalk or pencil sketch on tinted paper. The inclusion of the original artist's name and the source collection at the base of the print reflects the nineteenth-century scholarly interest in cataloguing and reproducing historical artworks for a wider audience.

As a reproduction, this work provides insight into how nineteenth-century historians and artists interpreted the aesthetic of the French Renaissance. The focus remains on the clarity of the line and the historical accuracy of the costume, rather than the expressive brushwork found in later painting traditions. The print serves as a record of the original Clouet drawing, preserving the likeness of the queen as it was understood by researchers in the mid-nineteenth century. It is a fine example of the technical skill involved in mid-century colour printing, where multiple stones were used to achieve the soft, tonal quality of the original medium.