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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of Pierre Aymeric 1534 oil on panel Musée du Louvre |
"The problem of Corneille de Lyon is, as has already been said, unusual in that, although we have many contemporary references which show him to have been a portrait painter of great repute, we have only one work which we can attribute to him with certainty. The documents prove that he was of Dutch origin and was born in The Hague, that he was painter to the Dauphin, later Henry II, from 1540 onwards, and that he was naturalized French in 1547. In 1551 the Venetian ambassador, Giovanni Capelli, describes a visit to his studio, where he saw little portraits of all the members of the French Court. After the death of Henry II he continued in favour with his successors. He abjured Protestantism and joined the Roman Church in 1569, and the last record of him dates from 1574.
In the absence of any signed work by his hands the safest starting-point is a portrait of Pierre Aymeric, a native of St Flour, which has on the back an inscription in the hand of the sitter, saying that it was painted by 'Corneille de la Haye' in 1534 and that it was finished on 11 April, the day when the inscription itself was added. This portrait confirms the attribution to him of a number of portraits which have long gone under his name, which are characterized by their small size, their sensitive naturalistic modelling in a northern manner, and usually by a green background. We have no evidence of the artist's early training, but there is nothing in Dutch portraiture of the time to suggest that he learnt his art in his own country. Closer links can perhaps be seen with Antwerp, more precisely with Joos van Cleve, whose portraits, though larger in scale, have very much the same modelling in thin glazes which give variety of light and texture to the features rather than plasticity. The influence may have been reinforced when the Flemish painter visited the French Court, probably soon after 1530, to paint Francis I and his second wife, Eleanor of Portugal."
– Anthony Blunt, from Art and Architecture in France, 1500-1700, first published in 1953, revised by Richard Beresford and published by Yale University Press, 1999
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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of a Man ca. 1530 oil on panel Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon |
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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of a Man ca. 1550-60 oil on panel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of Anne de Pisseleu, duchesse d'Étampes ca. 1535-40 oil on panel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of a Man ca. 1535-40 oil on panel National Trust, Upton House, Warwickshire |
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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of a Man ca. 1535-40 oil on panel National Trust, Upton House, Warwickshire |
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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of Anne de Montmorency ca. 1533-36 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of a Woman before 1575 oil on panel Cleveland Museum of Art (Ohio) |
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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of a Man before 1575 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of a Man ca. 1550 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of Marie de Batarnay ca. 1535-40 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of a Young Man before 1575 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of a Man ca. 1545 oil on panel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of François de Montmorency ca. 1557 oil on panel Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts |
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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of a Man ca. 1536-40 oil on panel National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |