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

The traditional identification of the sitter as Renée de France (under which name the portrait was sold by Kleinberger in 1931) seems credible by comparison with the portrait of her listed as in the collection of Mrs. Julius Haas, Grosse Point, and with a replica in the Musée national du château, Versailles (A. Dubois de Groër, Corneille de la Haye dit Corneille de Lyon, Paris, 1996, p. 128, nos. 24-25). The costume, pose and facial types appear in the same manner in all three.

Renée de France (1510-1574), was the second daughter of Louis XII, King of France, and of Anne, Duchess of Brittany. She married Ercole II, Duke of Ferrara, eldest son of Alfonso I d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia. Of firmly Protestant sympathies, she entertained Calvin, who spent several weeks at her court in 1536. After her husband died in 1559, having fallen out with her son, Renée settled back in her estate at Montargis, where she died in 1574.