Charles IX, King of France

Painted around 1550, this portrait shows Charles IX of France at roughly age eleven, wearing the ribbon and cross of the Ordre de Saint-Michel. The work is derived from a preparatory drawing by François Clouet, the dominant portrait painter at the Valois court, whose delicate draftsmanship and subtle use of color established the standard for French royal portraiture. Clouet succeeded his father Jean as painter to the king and produced hundreds of portrait drawings and paintings of the extended royal family and court. The young king’s expressionu2014guarded, formal, and quietly self-possessedu2014belies the turbulent reign that would follow, marked by the Wars of Religion and the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. The painting is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.