COLOMBE, MICHEL

COLOMBE, MICHEL. - Sculptor, born in Brittany around 1430-40, died before 1519. From 1491 he settled in Tours, where in 1500 he received the commission to execute a medal in honor of Louis XII.
In 1507 he completed the monument to Francis II of Brittany in Nantes Cathedral, perhaps conceived under the influence of G. Perreau, who had recently returned from Italy, and executed in collaboration with Guillaume Regnauld, J. de Chartres, and Italian marble-workers. In 1508 he carved for Cardinal Georges d’Amboise the relief of St. George slaying the dragon, now in the Louvre. While the medal of Louis XII remains closely tied to Gothic taste in every part, both the monument to Francis II and the relief of St. George show the most evident influence of the Italian Renaissance style, especially in the architectural and decorative elements, which, however, are superimposed upon or intertwined with traditional motifs rather than fused with them. Thus the merits of Colombe as a sculptor must be sought above all in the delicate modeling of his figures, where the acute realism of the Gothic tradition is as if veiled by a gentle sense of melancholy poetry.