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- Germain Pilon (1525 - 1590)
- Charles IX
- France
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- Date: c. 1570-9
- Object Type: Bust
- Medium: Bronze. Marble socle and associated marble pedestal
- Height: Bust, 62.2 cm
- Height: Bust and socle, 70.9 cm
- Width: Maximum, 60.5 cm
- Inv: S154
- Location: Sixteenth Century Gallery
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- Description
- Provenance
- Further Reading
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- Charles IX (1550-74) acceded to the throne of France at the age of ten. Weak in health, he was largely under the sway of his mother, Catherine de’Medici and the duc de Guise, the leader of the Catholic faction at a time of intense religious strife in France. The notorious St Bartholomew's Day massacre of the French Huguenots happened during his reign. For all the splendour of Charles’s costume, with his laurel crown and military armour, the thin lips and suspicious eyes of this masterful portrait brilliantly suggest the young king’s brittle and nervous character. It is one of the finest surviving works of Germain Pilon who was sculpteur du Roi under both Charles IX and his successor, Henri III.