ABSTRACT
The second half of the fourteenth century was an extremely rich period for the production of sculpture in France. Although the great Gothic cathedral enterprises had provided a prominent forum for sculptural cycles, by the fourteenth century an arena of differing character was offered by the secular world. Its great patrons, the kings, dukes and nobility of France, created new employment for sculptors, and a demand for monumental figure sculpture and decorative work. At the turn of the century, such a situation was exemplified by the cycle of statues of the kings of France commissioned for the Palais de la Cité by Philippe le Bel (1285-1314). In the second half of the century, the reigns of Jean le Bon (1350-1364), Charles V (1364-1380) and Charles VI (1380-1422) brought new building campaigns for the construction of chateaux, palaces, gateways, and chapels, and a new interest in the potential of imagery to convey power and prestige. Charles V had statues of himself and his queen, Jeanne de Bourbon, erected over the gateways to his palaces at the Louvre, the Bastille, and Vincennes, as well as at the entrance to his foundation of the Célestins in Paris. The famous ten-statue display on the Louvre staircase also featured figures of the king and queen and their two male heirs, the dukes of Anjou, Berry, Burgundy and Orléans, the Virgin and St John, and two sergeants of arms. 1
