Colart de Laon (1417)

• Colart de Laon Sold at Auction

Colart de Laon Biography

(fl 1377; d before 27 May 1417). French painter. His activity is documented in connection with festive and funerary ceremonies, battle gear, panels and tapestry cartoons. He is first mentioned in 1377, employed by Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in connection with the obsequies of Jean de Beauval, a chamberlain. Colart also designed the chapelles ardentes (settings for funerals) for Jean d’Artois, Comte d’Eu (d 1387); Henry of Bar (1397); Boniface de Morez, squire of the Duke of Orléans (1399); the Dauphin Charles (1401); and in 1404 for a commemorative ceremony honouring Philip of Burgundy. For another ceremony in 1382 Colart painted tapers with the arms of the king, Charles VI, and of the dukes of Berry, Burgundy, Valois and Bourbon. Most commissions related to festivities came from the Crown, beginning in 1382, and consisting in painting banners and jousting implements. Colart was employed for the elaborate entry of Isabeau of Bavaria into Paris (1389). In 1391 he was made Valet de Chambre by the King and by his brother Louis I, Duke of Orléans. For these patrons Colart prepared ceremonial trappings in connection with the marriage (1402) of John, eldest son of Duke Philip the Bold, in Cambrai. Louis had also employed Colart to embellish his chariot (1394) and to decorate his new library (1398). The Dukes of Burgundy continued to use this artist’s services: Philip the Bold ordered 4000 painted silk pennons for the victory at Roosebeke (1382) and war trappings for his son John (1396). As Duke of Burgundy in 1409, John the Fearless ordered jousting gear from Colart, who in 1411 also prepared banners for the young Charles, Duke of Orléans. Mentions of panel paintings are relatively scarce. In December 1395 Colart was paid by Duke Philip’s chamberlain for ‘grands tableaux’, for which a latch was made by the locksmith Jehannin le Conte; it was brought to a chapel in Chartres Cathedral. In 1396 Colart executed ‘un tableau de bois qui fait ciel et dossier’, which included images of the Virgin , St John and the Trinity (destr.), for a chapel endowed by Louis of Orléans in the church of the Celestines (destr.), Paris. In 1397 Colart painted holy figures on a reliquary chest owned by Queen Isabeau and supplied a panel with SS Louis of France and Louis of Toulouse for the room of the Dauphin Charles. In 1400 he provided four large, painted cartoons for tapestries ordered by the Queen. In 1406 Colart committed himself to complete a ‘tableau’, gift of Jean de la Cloche to the Paris Parlement.

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