Corneille de Lyon* (c. 1500-c. 1575)

Portrait of the Duc d'Étampes, small bust length , wearing a black tunic with a gold chain, a white collar and a black hat with a white plume

Details

Corneille de Lyon* (c. 1500-c. 1575)
Portrait of the Duc d'Étampes, small bust length , wearing a black tunic with a gold chain, a white collar and a black hat with a white plume
oil on panel inset into panel
6¼ x 5 1/8in. (15.9 x 13.1cm.)

Provenance

Georges de Monbrison, Château de Saint-Roche, Le Pin, Tarn-et-Garonne, circa 1904.
Eugéne Kraemer, Paris, before 1913.
Leopold Hirsch, London.
with Jacques Seligmann, New York.
Mrs. Arthur Lehman, New York, 1929, and by descent to the present owners.

Literature

G. Briére, Catalogue des Peintures, Louvre, I, Ecole Française, 1924, p. 280 as a replica of the Louvre version.
L. Dimier, Histoire de la Peinture de Portrait en France au XVIe Siècle, 1925, II, p. 76, no. 299 as a copy after the original in the Wallace collection which he attributes to the anonymous Master of Rieux de Châteauneuf.
Wallace Collection catalogues, Pictures and Drawings, 1928, p. 62 as a version of the Wallace collection portrait.
C. Sterling and H. Adhémar, La Peinture au Musée du Louvre; École Française, XIV^e, XV^e et XVI^e Siécles, 1965, p. 30, under no. 35 as a replica.
C. Virch, The Adele and Arthur Lehman Collection, 1965, pp. 41-2, illustrated.
The Frances and John L. Loeb Collection, 1982, no. 2, illustrated.
A.D. de Groër, Corneille de la Haye dit Corneille de Lyon, 1996, p. 155, under no. 46 as a replica.

Exhibited

Paris, Palais du Louvre, Les Primitifs Français, 1904, no. 161 as datable to circa 1548.

Lot Essay

The present painting is an autograph version of the painting in the Wallace Collection, London, for which a further version exists in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, Inv. no. 3258 (A.D. de Groër op. cit., pp. 53-7, nos. 46 and 46a).

Both the Wallace and Louvre paintings have inscriptions identifying the sitter as 'Le Comte de Hertford' and 'Francois I Roy de Fr' respectively. However, de Groer believes that the sitter is most likely Jean de Brosse, Duc d'Étamps, on the basis of a drawing by Jean Clouet in the Musée Condé, Chantilly, Inv. no. 272.