Art Institute of Chicago

Portrait of a Man

Corneille de Lyon (French, c. 1505-1575)

Date

c. 1555

Medium

Oil on panel

Culture

France

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Dutch-born painter Corneille de Lyon employed a limited selection of colors to great effect in this small painting. The textured, green background accentuates the subject’s velvety black outfit, lace collar, pale skin, and bristly beard. Corneille specialized in this stylized type of small, finely painted precious portraiture, working primarily for the court and bourgeois elite of 16th-century Lyon, France, where he lived most of his life. The sitter’s exaggerated proportions direct the viewer’s attention to his head and thus to his quiet yet self-assured expression. His confident posture and expensive clothes, along with the exceptional reputation of his portraitist, speak to his high social status.

The authoritative record is held by Art Institute of Chicago. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.