Old Masters Evening Sale

Old Masters Evening Sale

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 1. Portrait of a bearded man, half-length, wearing a black hat 《蓄鬍子戴黑帽的男子半身像》.

The Property of a Gentleman

Netherlandish School, circa 1530

Portrait of a bearded man, half-length, wearing a black hat 《蓄鬍子戴黑帽的男子半身像》

Auction Closed

December 8, 08:20 PM GMT

Estimate

120,000 - 180,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

The Property of a Gentleman

Netherlandish School, circa 1530

Portrait of a bearded man, half-length, wearing a black hat


oil on card

41.7 x 30.9 cm.; 16⅜ x 12⅛ in.


私人收藏

尼德蘭畫派

約1530年

《蓄鬍子戴黑帽的男子半身像》


油彩卡紙

41.7 x 30.9 公分;16 ⅜ x 12 ⅛ 英寸

This painting is displayed in a loan frame from Arnold Wiggins & Sons. If you wish to purchase the frame please contact a member of the Old Masters department.
Private collection, France;

Anonymous sale, Monaco, Sotheby's, 20 June 1987, lot 344 (as Corneille de Lyon);

With Maison d'Art, Monaco;

With The Weiss Gallery, London, 2009 (as Corneille de Lyon);

From whom acquired in 2010 by the present owner.

A. Dubois de Groër, Corneille de La Haye dit Corneille de Lyon (1500/1510–1575), Paris 1996, p. 250, no. 190 (under ‘Doubtful or Rejected Attributions’).
London, The Weiss Gallery, The Weiss Gallery: 25 Years, 24 June – 10 July 2010, no. 9 (as Corneille de Lyon).

This intriguing portrait of exceptional quality depicts a man whose features have been described in minute detail, from the mole at the bridge of his nose to his thick, deep red hair and beard. His expression is inscrutable, but confident, as his gaze confronts the viewer from beneath somewhat quizzical eyebrows. The sitter wears a sober black coat and soft cap, which do not provide clues as to his nationality, but do identify him most probably as a rich merchant.


The work would appear to date to circa 1530–40, and is most likely to have been painted by an artist working in the Low Countries. The portrait has previously been attributed to Corneille de Lyon (1500–1575), who was born in The Hague but spent his entire career in France, and the sitter’s pose, aspect and setting against a green background with a shadow at the margin as if cast by a frame, are indeed all features typical of Corneille’s œuvre. However, the scale of the portrait – around double the dimensions of most of Corneille’s likenesses, and its style of execution – the opacity of which differs from Corneille’s almost miniaturist technique, suggest that the painting is the work of another hand.


No doubt aware of Corneille, the author of this painting seems also to have been familiar with the output of Joos van Cleve (d. 1540/41) and the so-called Master of the 1540s, who were both active in Antwerp at this time. Indeed, Joos van Cleve is known to have spent time in France in the 1530s, and the present portrait is very much in the vein of Van Cleve’s pendants depicting himself and his second wife, Katlijne van Mispelteeren, painted upon his return to Antwerp, in circa 1540 (Royal Collection, Windsor).1 Like the present work, that pair replicates the French taste for the sitter positioned before a plain background, as seen in the court portraits of Corneille, François Clouet and Van Cleve’s likenesses of Eleanora of Austria, Queen of France, and François I, but the sitters are dressed in the dark, less elaborate garments found in Antwerp portraits, such as those by the Master of the 1540s.


This portrait is particularly notable and rare for its execution on a card support. Few works in oil on paper are known from this time, and those that survive are now pasted on panel, such as examples by the likes of Quinten Massys, Hans Holbein the Younger, Willem Key, and other South Netherlandish artists, including the anonymous author of the Portrait of a young man, sold at Sotheby's, New York, 4 June 2009, lot 12, which was itself previously attributed to Joos van Cleve.2


This painting is displayed in a loan frame from Arnold Wiggins & Sons. If you wish to purchase the frame please contact a member of the Old Masters department.


1 Inv. nos RCIN 405780 and 405779; https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/4/collection/405780/a-self-portrait and https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/3/collection/405779/katlijne-van-mispelteeren-the-artists-wife

2 https://rkd.nl/explore/images/227238