Armand de Gontaut, Baron de Biron (1524–1592) was a renowned French military commander. Wounded in Piedmont in his youth, he was nicknamed ‘Armand le Boiteux’ (the lame). Biron distinguished himself in the French wars of religion, commanding the royal forces at the siege of La Rochelle, and in 1576 was made a marshal of France. Although a strong supporter of Henry III, after the king was killed in 1589 he was one of the first to support Henry of Navarre. He was killed by a cannonball at the siege of Épernay on 26 July 1592.

The canvas medium and the painter’s stylistic technique suggest that this painting is unlikely to have been executed during Biron’s lifetime. It relates closely to the portrait of Biron that hung in Cardinal Richelieu’s ‘Galerie des Hommes Illustres’, a collection of twenty-five illustrious men and women painted by Simon Vouet and Philippe de Champaigne and completed in 1635. Biron was also godfather to Richelieu. The Galerie portrait was widely known through François Bignon’s engraving, published in 1640 in Les Portraits des Hommes Illustres François, and through many subsequent engravings and editions, each slightly different.¹ However, the Raynham portrait differs from the Galerie portrait in several ways: Biron appears older, his sash is across the opposite shoulder and the unknown artist has added embroidery to the sash and decorative brass detailing to the armour, suggesting that this portrait may not derive from Bignon’s engraving. There is no known Townshend connection to Biron and it is not clear how this painting came to Raynham.