Tomb of Valentina Balbiani
The Tomb of Valentina Balbiani is a white marble tomb sculpture constructed between 1573 and 1574 for Jeanne Valentine Balbiani (1518–1572), the Italian wife of the French statesman René de Birague (1506-1583). It was commissioned by her later husband, who employed the French Mannerist sculptor Germain Pilon (1535–1590) to design and build the monument.[1]
Both her and de Birague were buried under the same tomb. The monument was originally in a Paris church later destroyed during the French Revolution. Today it is in the collection of the Louvre.[2]
Description
The effigy shows her as if alive: sitting upright and reading a book. Her face is thought to be an accurate, unidealised depiction of how she looked at that age. She wears a sumptuous, formal dress and reads from a book as a dog rests by her side.[3]
In contrast, the imagery on the long sides of the tomb chest shows a skeletal gisant after death; in the words of the writer Jeffrey Meyers, the chest shows "shows her frightening change from elegant beauty to emaciated cadaver. The cushions now support Valentine’s bare skull, and her skeletal hands clutch the cerements to hide her private parts.[2]
References
Sources
- Jouanna, Arlette. "Histoire et Dictionnaire des Guerres de Religion". Bouquin, 1998
- Meyers, Jeffrey. "Reviewed Work: New Selected Poems by Thom Gunn, Clive Wilmer". The Kenyon Review, volume 41, nr. 4, July/August 2019
- Panofsky, Erwin. Tomb Sculpture: Four Lectures on its Changing Aspects from Ancient Egypt to Bernini. London: Harry Abrams, 1964. ISBN 978-0-8109-3870-0
- Radcliffe, Alida Graveraet. Schools and Masters of Sculpture. New York: Appleton, 1908