Follower of Corneille de Lyon, 'Portrait of a Woman', probably about 1560

We don't know who the young woman in this small portrait was, but her jewellery and clothes, which are in the fashion of around 1560, are not enormously rich: she was probably not a lady of the court. The portrait is rather loosely, even carelessly, painted and it is not always clear exactly what is represented.

Her headdress, which is a cap or snood with a central seam, is pale yellow and patterned with orange dots and dashes. The ruffles at her chin and the upper part of her underdress are similarly decorated in orange and yellow: this is probably intended to suggest embroidery in gold thread on white fabrics. Her dress is purple with deep purple facings, and her sleeves are white pattered with horizontal and vertical slashes. She wears a belt and a bracelet apparently made of small gold links, and a necklace incorporating small pearls alternating with gold links, which she has looped into the neckline of her dress. At the wrists her sleeves and the ruffles are decorated with red or pink. A restorer has prettified her cap, collar and underdress, and the belt, necklace and bracelet by adding touches of gilding.

The picture is painted on limewood panel. The ground is white, presumably chalk and glue, and seems to be covered with a whitish priming. Infrared reflectograhy reveals extensive underdrawing. In the face the features are outlined in short overlapping strokes which are probably the result of drawing over a design transferred from a cartoon by tracing or pouncing. The underdrawing for the hair, cap and clothes is bolder and freer.

This painting was in Italy at an early period (perhaps around 1700), when it was attributed to Lucas van Leyden, whose name, Luca Di Olanda, is written on the back. When it was taken to France it was attributed to Corneille de Lyon.

A rather similar but even smaller portrait of a similarly dressed lady is in the collection of the Duke of Westminster at Eaton Hall. She wears a dark veil of the kind associated with women of lesser rank and has looped her necklace into the neckline in the same way. Like the lady in our painting, she is smiling, her eyes are too far apart and her near eye is placed too low and too far to our right. Both these portraits could be by the same, rather unskillful, follower of Corneille, perhaps tracing the underdrawing from a drawing by a more competent artist. If he was working in Corneille’s workshop, perhaps he painted the less influential and prosperous clients.