Jean II, dit le Bon, roi de France (1319-1364)

This portrait by Jean-Léonard Lugardon depicts John II, known as John the Good, king of France from 1350 to 1364. Son of Philip VI, he ruled during one of the most difficult phases of the Hundred Years’ War, marked in particular by the defeat at Poitiers in 1356, his capture by the English, and the deep political, military, and financial crisis then affecting the kingdom. The image is not a contemporary portrait of the sovereign but a later historical reconstruction, characteristic of the nineteenth century’s taste for major figures of the French monarchy. It contributes to the memorial representation of the kings of France in a solemn and idealized vision of the dynastic past.