Isabeau de Savoie, Comtesse du Bouchage

This portrait of Isabeau de Savoie, Comtesse du Bouchage, painted around 1550, documents a member of the French aristocracy during the reign of Henry II. Corneille de Lyon's portraits of the French nobility constitute an invaluable visual record of 16th-century French court society. His patrons included virtually every important family in the kingdom. Characteristic of Lyon's approach, the work displays small-scale portraits on wood or parchment, blue-green or red grounds, intimate psychological likeness.

The small-scale portrait employs Corneille's characteristic format of a bust-length figure against a colored ground. Delicate brushwork captures the sitter's features and elaborate costume with miniaturist precision while maintaining the psychological presence of a much larger work.