Louis XII
Lorenzo da Mugiano (active early sixteenth century) · 1508
A headless torso in magnificent armour is all that remains of a statue of King Louis the Twelfth carved in Milan in 1508. Every surface of the cuirass is worked: a collar of scallop shells, the emblem of the royal Order of Saint Michael, runs round the neck, cavalry battles unfold across the chest and skirt, and a sash is knotted in a bow at the waist. Run your eye along the border of the breastplate and you will find the Latin signature, Lorenzo da Mugiano of Milan made this work, 1508. The head and right hand were knocked off in 1793; a replacement head carved around 1800 by Pierre-Nicolas Beauvallet is not shown with the torso.
The work was one of three statues sent from Milan on 25 February 1509 to Cardinal Georges d'Amboise for his new chateau at Gaillon, along with figures of the cardinal himself and of Charles d'Amboise, and it stood in a gallery of the main courtyard. After the mutilation of 1793 a marble dealer bought the piece and sold it to Alexandre Lenoir's Museum of French Monuments, where Lenoir had it restored. It came to the Louvre in 1817.
Did You Know? The battle scenes on the king's armour were carved in Milan while the French actually held the city, a souvenir of a conquest that did not last.
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