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Gabrielle d’Estrées and One of Her Sisters, School of Fontainebleau, c. 1594

Mannerism · c. 1594

Gabrielle d’Estrées and One of Her Sisters

School of Fontainebleau Anonymous, c. 1594

The Louvre · Paris

Two near-identical nudes in a curtained bath; one pinches the other’s nipple — a Fontainebleau riddle of a royal mistress’s pregnancy and a king’s ring.

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The story of Gabrielle d’Estrées and One of Her Sisters

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Chapter 1 of 6

A Bath, a Secret

You're looking at one of the strangest portraits the French Renaissance produced: two near-identical women, bare to the waist, seated side by side in a marble bath behind a parted crimson curtain. The woman on the right is Gabrielle d'Estrées, mistress of King Henri the Fourth. The painter is unknown, working at Fontainebleau around 1594.

Nothing here is casual. Every gesture is a coded message about love, lineage, and a child on the way. Let the picture's cool, enamelled calm draw you in, then look closer, because the stillness is deceptive.

Where to see it

The Louvre

Paris

Room 824 · Second School of Fontainebleau · Level 2 · Richelieu wing

The Hear Art 3D museum guide walks you to it.

Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.

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