Portrait of a Man with Right Hand

Portrait of a Man with Right Hand from 1530 by Corneille de Lyon is an early work that shows the painter experimenting with a slightly more expansive format than his standard bust-length compositions. The inclusion of the hand—unusual in Corneille's later oeuvre, which typically concentrates on the face—reflects the early period when he was still exploring the possibilities of his small-scale format. Corneille had arrived in Lyon only a few years before this date, bringing the Flemish portrait tradition of the Low Countries to a French city that was then the commercial and cultural capital of the kingdom. The work's freshness and directness of observation establish the qualities that would make Corneille the dominant portraitist of the French Renaissance court.

The portrait extends beyond Corneille's usual bust format to include the hand, while maintaining his characteristic precision and colored ground.