Corneille de Lyon

Sir Charles Ibbetson Bt.(1814-1861) of Denton Park, Yorkshire;
Thence by direct family descent.

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden, an external expert who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a slim little panel, which has remained almost completely flat with no sign of flaking or movement in the paint, in the past or the present. The detailed brushwork in the costume with its fine flecks of colour is exquisitely preserved. There is a small old knock by the neck at the left in the collar, and another old retouching in the background to the left of the head. The glazing in the head is rather less finely intact, with a few thinner places, in the cheek by the nostril and the edge of the eye socket, slightly retouched. Essentially this lovely small portrait has remained unusually undisturbed and well preserved. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
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Although perhaps with a more 'finished' appearance than the previous lot, this portrait would appear to date from a similar moment in the artist's career. Here again, more attention has been paid to the features of the face than the clothing which in parts is broadly suggested rather than fully worked up. In both paintings Corneille has added a shadow on the left vertical and upper horizontal, lending a curious sense of space between the back of the sitter's head and the green background. Such a trompe l'oeil effect was one often employed by Corneille (see, for example, the Portrait of Charles de Rochefoucauld sold London, Christie's, 25 April 2008, lot 59). The execution of the face of this latter compares favourably with that of the present lot, where the porcelain-like, wide, smooth areas of flesh are interrupted only by subtle tonal changes and the edges of the features themselves.

Anne Dubois de Groer inspected this painting in the original in 1990 and at that time dated it to circa 1555-60.