10 AGNES SOREL 1422–1450 (Naples, Italy; Normandy, France) ALICE PURKISS
Agnes Sorel is renowned as the first officially recognised royal mistress in history. Nicknamed the ‘Dame de Beauté’ with her blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin, slender figure and high, round breasts, she was selected as mistress by the French King, Charles VII (1233–1461) in 1444. A public celebrity in her time, Sorel modelled for a number of contemporary paintings, including most famously Jean Fouquet’s 1450 Melun Diptych in which she appears as the Virgin Mary.1 Charles was said to be besotted with Sorel, as Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II) remarked: ‘He fell so much in love that he could not even spend an hour without her. Whether at table, in bed, at council, she was always by his side.’2 Sorel bore three of Charles’ children, all of whom he recognised.
Jean Fouquet, Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels, right wing of the Melun Diptych, about 1452, 93 x 85 cm, oil on board. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. Digital image courtesy of Brandmeister.
Attributed with inspiring political and military success, her role has come to represent both a romantic affair and an effective political engagement within the court, which marked a turning point in women’s visibility in official spaces.3 In presenting Sorel to his court, and more importantly in giving her a quasi-official position within it, the king defined a new role for women and a new practice for French kings.4 Sorel died from dysentery aged twenty-eight, however, rumours of poisoning were rife. In 2005, tests on her hair and skin found that she had indeed died from mercury poisoning, although whether or not this was murder remains unknown.5
Vanessa Bell, Agnes Sorel, plate design, 22.86 cm diameter, watercolour and pencil on paper. Copyright the Estate of Vanessa Bell, courtesy of Henrietta Garnett. Digital image courtesy of the Court Gallery.
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1 ‘Jean Fouquet’, Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T029118?q=Agnes+Sore l&search=quick&pos=10&_start=1#firsthit 2 Kathleen Wellman, Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), 25. 3 Wellman, Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France, 26 4 Wellman, Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France, 25 5 Jon Henley, ‘Scientific Sleuth Solves the Riddle of What Killed “France’s First Bimbo”’, Guardian, 2 April 2005: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/apr/02/france.jonhenley.