Portrait of Catherine de' Medici, c. 1565

This portrait on panel, executed around 1565 in the workshop of painter François Clouet and held at the Musée Carnavalet, depicts Catherine de' Medici in mourning attire, with the widow's hood and ornate ruff typical of 1560s court fashion. Regent of the kingdom since the death of her son Francis II in 1560, she then wielded real power in the name of the young Charles IX, whom she accompanied on the grand tour of France undertaken between 1564 and 1566 to reassert royal authority throughout the kingdom, culminating in the meeting at Bayonne with Spanish envoys in 1565. This portrait, contemporary with these events, shows the queen mother as she appeared at court at the height of her influence, before the great religious crises of the following decade.