17th century French school, follower of Corneille de Lyon(La - Lot 220

17th century French school, follower of Corneille de Lyon(LaHaye 1510 - 1575 Lyon) Portrait of François I Oil on panel 17 x 14 cm. On the back, two partially faded red wax stamps, possibly dating from the 18th century. Provenance: Acquired from a private collector in Rouen, in June 1859, by Sir John Hay Williams(1794-1859),2nd Baronet of Bodelwyddan, and of Rhianva, Anglesey, Then by descent until2022 Rosebery's sale, London, July 19, 2022, lot 27(as "entouragede Corneille de Lyon") Our interesting portrait of King François I is the product of a subtle hybridization between two iconographic models of primordial importance in Renaissance France: the portraits of the Clouet dynasty and those of Corneille de Lyon. The artist of our portrait seems to have used as a model the "equestrian portrait of François I" in the Musée Condé (inv. PE 279), once considered to be by François Clouet but downgraded by Alexandra Zvereva, who considers it to be by an anonymous artist dating from the first quarter of the 17th century. The miniature artist Condé used the most popular image of the king at the time, combining the aged face drawn by Clouet around 1545 with the black-and-white garment of the great portrait of 1524, which had already gone out of fashion in the 1530s (Louvre, inv. 33530 and 3256). The Château de Chambord conserves a monumental portrait of King François I (inv. CH/41/0560), also painted by an anonymous artist in the early 17th century, with the same features as the Condé miniature (face and costume), proof of the model's popularity and success. Here, the artist has chosen a tight, bust-like framing and a neutral, emerald-green background with shading on the margins: two founding elements of the iconographic model devised by Corneille de La Haye, also known as Corneille de Lyon. Although he probably never represented King François I and never left the city of Lyon, Corneille was a privileged witness to the French court's passage to Italy, which enabled him to produce several effigies of the king's family, notably the Dauphin François (1517-1539), of whom we know a later copy (Musée Condé, inv. PE 244) of the same dimensions as our François I. This proximity, a harbinger of his future title of "king's painter", was recalled by Brantôme, who commented on the Valois court's stay in the city in 1564: "Sur quoy il me souvient qu'étant un jour allée voir à Lyon un Peintre qui s'appelait Corneille, qui avoit peint, en une grande chambre, tous les grands Seigneurs, Princes, Cavaliers & grandes Reynes, Princesses, Dames et Filles de la cour de France".