Portrait of a Woman

The French Renaissance was much assisted by the Italian enthusiasm of King Francis I (r. 1515-47), who during three invasions of the peninsula established contacts with artists and poets; it expressed itself primarily in a blossoming portrait painting. Young aristocrats increasingly commissioned likenesses of their sweethearts, demanding that artists observe not so much upper-class decorum as vivid naturalness. The miniature portraits of Corneille de Lyon, a native of The Hague, illustrate this tendency.

The sitter of this portrait was probably Marquise de Rothelin or Fran�oise de Longwy-Givry.