Interior view

1541 · Château, Fontainebleau (Seine-et-Marne)

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In April 1528 Francis I commissioned Gilles Le Breton for a programme of building (completed 1540) at Fontainebleau. The Cour de l'Ovale was to be rebuilt using the old foundations and retaining the old keep, while a gallery, now the Galerie François I, was to be constructed linking this with the Trinitarian abbey to the west, which was soon demolished and replaced by the Cour du Cheval Blanc. The north range of the Cour du Cheval Blanc survives almost unaltered and is of plastered rubble with brick dressings.

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About the Artist

Francesco Primaticcio

1504 – 1570

Primaticcio was the head of the First School of Fontainebleau, and a universal impresario - painter, sculptor, architect, interior decorator. He learned these arts under Giulio Romano in the Palazzo del Tè at Mantua, from 1525/6 until 1532, when he was summoned to France by François I and began to work at Fontainebleau, where he met Rosso. From 1540 until 1542 he was in Rome buying for François, and on his return he found that Rosso was dead and Cellini had arrived (Cellini later threatened to kill him 'like a dog'). With Niccolò dell'Abbate he worked on the (lost) decorations of the Galérie d'Ulysse at Fontainebleau, and in 1546 he was again in Rome to get casts made, including Michelangelo 's Pietà in St Peter's, while in 1563 he revisited Bologna, his native town, and met Vasari there. There are works by him in Barnard Castle (Bowes Museum), Bologna, Chantilly, Florence (Uffizi), Glasgow, Montpellier, Paris (Louvre and Cluny Museum), Pittsburgh, and Toledo Ohio, but his main contribution is the combination of painted and high relief stucco decoration evolved at Fontainebleau and still partially preserved there.

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