Corneille de Lyon

Roger de Gaignières (1642–1715), Paris, until 1711, when sold along with his entire collection of paintings and manuscripts to;

Louis XIV (1638–1715), King of France;

His sale (of the entire Gaignières collection) arranged by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Torcy (his coat-of-arms affixed to the reverse), Paris, 21 ff. July 1717;

Probably George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1746–1816) by 1806;

Thence by descent.

Wellesley, Davis Museum, on long term loan.

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: Corneille de Lyon. Portrait of a Gentleman. This painting on a fine oak panel has been backed with a thicker bevelled oak panel supporting it, with narrow added strips on all sides. These are visible in the frame, in deeper green, apparently initially repairing a small triangular damage to the top right corner of the original panel. One older indented scrape can be seen just below the beard, but the exquisite finish of the paint surface has been carefully preserved and restored where necessary. The lower half of the painting, including the drapery and beard, has not been disturbed in any recent restoration, but a few fine retouchings can be seen under ultra violet light in the green background on the left and in the top right corner (as mentioned above). In the cheek on the left there has also been slightly more cleaning and a little careful retouching. The extraordinary refinement of the detail, richness of the green ground behind and penetration of the portrait remain beautifully preserved. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
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Unknown to Anne Dubois de Groër, compiler of the seminal catalogue of Corneille’s works, and indeed entirely unrecognised and unpublished until today, this is amongst the most significant additions to the artist’s œuvre in recent decades. Part of the collection of portraits at Warwick Castle since the nineteenth century, and possibly there as early as the late eighteenth century, it retains in its beautifully preserved paint surface all the best hallmarks of Corneille de Lyon’s early and most precise style. Alexandra Zvereva, who inspected the painting in Paris in May 2014, considers it to be executed with the precision and care of his very best works and, though unable to identify the sitter, Mme Zvereva has pointed to the type of black cap and black stole around his neck as items of clothing worn by members of the legal profession and has thus conjectured him to be a town magistrate. The very fine execution dates the portrait to the end of the 1530s, soon after Corneille’s arrival in France. It may be compared with the portrait in the National Gallery, London, of circa 1536, though in the present portrait the clothing is, unusually for Corneille, rather more finished.¹ The background of this portrait follows the pattern of the majority of the artist’s portraits, a rich green turning to shadow at the upper and one of the vertical margins to achieve an effect of trompe l’œil. All four margins have here been extended, giving the impression of deeper and longer than intended shadows at the two vertical, and upper horizontal margins. The original panel and the extensions are affixed to a bevelled oak panel.

Although Netherlandish by birth, Corneille de la Haye, later Corneille de Lyon, spent his working life in France, first as court painter to Queen Eleanor, second wife of François I, and later to Henri II, who appointed him Peintre du Roi in 1548. He had received his naturalisation papers in 1547 and he retained French nationality for the rest of his life. Corneille's great concern was the rendering of a lifelike and well-observed expression in his sitters. In his later works the precise nature of his native Dutch style is replaced by something more flexible and immediate. Almost without exception his portraits follow a set pattern; the sitter is presented bust- or half-length, in three-quarter pose against a usually green background, the concentration always on the facial features with the costume and arms usually, although not always, less minutely expressed.   

It has not been possible to firmly identify the portrait in any of the nineteenth-century inventories or accounts of the furnishings at Warwick Castle, though it is very likely identifiable with one of the many generic references to male portraits.  

Provenance
The arms on the reverse, with a crown atop a serpent encircled by collars of the king's orders, are those of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Torcy, an important diplomat at the court of Louis XIV. The presence of these arms denotes that the painting was one of the many portraits by Corneille in the collection of Roger de Gaignières, the entirety of which he sold to Louis XIV in about 1711 and which was then sold by the King in 1717 in a sale arranged by Colbert de Torcy. Fortuitously, before the auction Colbert de Torcy  placed his seal on the panels, many of which, as here, have been preserved intact.

1. A. Dubois de Groër, Corneille de la Haye, dit Corneille de Lyon, Paris 1996, pp. 150–51, cat. no. 41, reproduced.