Henry II style

Francis I and his daughter-in-law, Catherine de' Medici, had imported to France a number of Italian artists from Raphael's workshop or former assistants of Michelangelo, known as the School of Fontainebleau, where many were based.

First Rosso Fiorentino and then Francesco Primaticcio and Sebastiano Serlio served Henry II as court artisans, constructing his gallery and the Aile de la Belle Cheminée (1568) at the Palace of Fontainebleau.

The Château d'Anet, commissioned by Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henry II, was designed by Philibert Delorme, who studied in Rome.

A very thorough catalogue of engravings of sixteenth-century French architecture was produced by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau the Elder under the title Les plus excellents bâtiments de France (between 1576 and 1579, in two volumes).

By the end of the century the Henry II style, a Gallicised form of Italian Mannerism, had been replaced by a more consistent classicism, with hints of the coming Baroque.

Henry II wardrobe, circa 1580, walnut and oak wood, in the Louvre . Much like Henri II buffets, French Renaissance wardrobes feature the rich sculptural ornamentation ( niches , pediments , pilasters , caryatids , festoane ) characteristic of much Renaissance furniture [ 1 ]
The Chateau de Chantilly
Diane appuyée sur un cerf by Goujon