# Monument to Valentine Balbiani \(detail\) [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [PILON, Germain]() - Date: 1551-1600 - Technique: Marble, 83 x 191 cm ## Commentary In a detailed contract executed with Germain Pilon in 1574, Chancellor René de Birague stipulated exactly how he wanted the sculptor to depict his wife, Valentine Balbiani \(1518-1572\), who had just died. Originally in Sainte-Catherine-du-Val-des-Écoliers in Paris, the tomb was dismantled in 1793, only a few fragments survive \(now in the Louvre\). Reclining on her elbow in a daybed, Valentine is pensive, a book in her hand and her little dog by her side. Her elegant mien and dress and the whiteness of the marble must have produced a striking effect when combined with the black marble framing elements of the tomb. But the more telling contrast was with the relief depicting her body "in a deceased state" that the chancellor directed be set into its sarcophagus. His intention may have been to convey the brutal suddenness of his lost. ## Related artworks - [Cardinal René de Birague \(1506–83\)]() - [Caryatids]() - [Charles IX of France]() - [Diana with a Stag]() - [Diana with a Stag]() - [Effigies of Henri II and Catherine de' Medici \(detail\)]() - [Effigies of Henri II and Catherine de' Medici \(detail\)]() - [Effigies of Henri II and Catherine de' Medici]() - [Effigies of Henri II and Catherine de' Medici]() - [Effigies of Henri II and Catherine de' Medici]() - [Monument for the Heart of Henri II]() - [Monument for the Heart of Henri II]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()