.jpg)
Diane de Poitiers
Diane de Poitiers was a French noblewoman and a prominent courtier at the courts of King Francis I of France and his son, Henry II. She became notorious as King Henry's chief mistress and in this role she wielded much influence and power at the French Court, which continued until Henry was mortally wounded in a tournament accident. It was during that tournament that his lance wore her favour (ribbon) rather than his wife's.
Philibert de l'Orme
Philibert de l'Orme was a French architect and writer, and one of the great masters of French Renaissance architecture. His surname is also written De l'Orme, de L'Orme, or Delorme.
Pierre Lescot
Pierre Lescot was a French architect active during the French Renaissance. His most notable works include the Fontaine des Innocents and the Lescot wing of the Louvre in Paris. He played an important role in the introduction of elements of classical architecture into French architecture.
French Renaissance
The French Renaissance was the cultural and artistic movement in France between the 15th and early 17th centuries. The period is associated with the pan-European Renaissance, a word first used by the French historian Jules Michelet to define the artistic and cultural "rebirth" of Europe.
Claude, Duke of Aumale
Claude of Lorraine, Duke of Aumale was the third son of Claude, Duke of Guise and Antoinette de Bourbon. He was a prince of Lorraine by birth.
Germain Pilon
Germain Pilon was a French Renaissance sculptor.
Jacques Sarazin
Jacques Sarazin or Sarrazin was a French sculptor and painter of the early Baroque and Style Louis XIV. His prominent works include the caryatides on the facade of the Pavillon de l'Horloge of the Louvre (1636). ( His preparatory drawings in chalk have become more prominent in recent decades. He oriented the French Baroque toward classicism.
Château d'Anet
The Château d'Anet is a château near Dreux, in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France, built by Philibert de l'Orme from 1547 to 1552 for Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of Henry II of France. It was a gift from the king and was built on the former château at the center of the domains of Diane's deceased husband, Louis de Brézé, seigneur d'Anet, Marshal of Normandy and Master of the Hunt.
Louis de Brézé
Louis de Brézé, Seigneur d'Anet and Comte de Maulevrier was a French nobleman, the grandson of King Charles VII of France by his natural daughter with his mistress Agnès Sorel.
French Renaissance architecture
French Renaissance architecture is a style which was prominent between the 15th and early 17th centuries in the Kingdom of France. It succeeded French Gothic architecture. The style was originally imported from Italy by the French kings Charles VIII, Louis XII, and François I. Several notable royal châteaux in this style were built in the Loire Valley; notably the Chateau d'Amboise, the Chateau of Blois, the Chateau of Gaillon, and the Chateau of Chambord, and, closer to Paris, the Chateau of Fontainebleau.
Château d'Écouen
The Château d'Écouen is an historic château in the commune of Écouen, some 20 km north of Paris, France, and a notable example of French Renaissance architecture. Since 1975 it contains the collections of the Musée national de la Renaissance.
Henry II style
The Henry II style was the chief artistic movement of the sixteenth century in France, part of Northern Mannerism. It came immediately after High Renaissance and was largely the product of Italian influences. Francis I and his daughter-in-law, Catherine de' Medici, had imported to France a number Italian artists of Raphael's or Michelangelo's school; the Frenchmen who followed them in working in the Mannerist idiom. Besides the work of Italians in France, many Frenchman picked up Italianisms while studying art in Italy during the middle of the century. The Henry II style, though named after Henry II of France, in fact lasted from about 1530 until 1590 under five French monarchs, their mistresses and their queens.
Lescot Wing
The Lescot Wing is the oldest portion above ground of the Louvre Palace, in Paris, France. It was executed to the designs of the architect Pierre Lescot between 1546 and 1551. Strongly tinged with Italian Mannerism, it became the Parisian Renaissance style, thus "setting the mold" for all later French architectural classicism.
Fontaine des Innocents
The Fontaine des Innocents is a monumental public fountain located on the place Joachim-du-Bellay in the Les Halles district in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. Originally called the Fountain of the Nymphs, it was constructed between 1547 and 1550 by architect Pierre Lescot and sculptor Jean Goujon in the new style of the French Renaissance. It is the oldest monumental fountain in Paris.
Paris in the 16th century
During the 16th century, Paris was the largest city in Europe, with a population of about 350,000 in 1550.
Fountain of Diana
Fountain of Diana (Diane d'Anet, Diana with a Stag), c. 1549, is a marble Mannerist sculpture of Diane de Poitiers as goddess Diana in the Louvre. Formerly known as Jean Goujon's work, it is now thought more likely to have been the work of Germain Pilon or someone else.
French sculpture
French sculpture has been an original and influential component of world art since the Middle Ages. The first known French sculptures date to the Upper Paleolithic age. French sculpture originally copied ancient Roman models, then found its own original form in the decoration of Gothic architecture. French sculptors produced important works of Baroque sculpture for the decoration of the Palace of Versailles. In the 19th century, the sculptors Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas created a more personal and non-realistic style, which led the way to modernism in the 2Oth century, and the sculpture of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Marcel Duchamp and Jean Arp.