Corneille de la Haye, called Corneille de Lyon (The Hague 1500-1575 Lyons)

Born in The Hague around the turn of the century, Corneille de Lyon is documented in the city whose name has since become his own from 1533 until his death in 1575. Like his predecessor Jean Perréal (c. 1460-1530), portraitist to Charles VIII and Louis XII and the most prominent member of the Lyon artist’s guild, Corneille specialised in intimately-sized bust-length portraits painted in just a few sittings, often without preparatory drawings. The artist set his elegant sitters against uniform backgrounds, blue or green in colour, the latter being the most common and ranging from vibrant lime to more subdued olive. Images of great presence and immediacy, these works became extremely popular among Lyon’s patrician elite and members of the royal family who travelled through that city, including Catherine de’ Medici and her husband, the Dauphin Henri (later Henri II), by whom Corneille would be appointed Peintre du Roi in 1548.

This portrait is a fine work from the Corneille's mature period of circa 1555. The sitter’s sober yet elegant dark costume contrasts with the vivid backdrop. Free from distracting anecdotic details, the viewer’s attention is directed almost entirely on the sitter's delicately painted face and soft gaze. Although the identity of the sitter has yet to be ascertained, his trimmed beard, velvet cap, and fine black coat suggest mid-16th century French fashion. The flat hat, or toque, was characteristic of the period and is found repeatedly on contemporary male portraits, for example in Corneille’s portrait of a man thought to be Clement Marot (Louvre, RF 1949012; see A. Dubois de Groër, Corneille de La Haye dit Corneille de Lyon, Paris, 1996, pp. 174-175, n. 71). Furthermore, the attire of our sitter resembles that worn by the Calvinist jurist Laurent de Normandie when portrayed by Corneille de Lyon in 1552 (Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva, inv. 1928-13; see A. Dubois de Groër, op.cit., pp. 186-7, no. 89) as well as various other unidentified portraits created by the artist in this period.

We are grateful to Alexandra Zvereva for confirming the attribution to Corneille de Lyon on first-hand inspection, and dating it to circa 1555.