QUESNEL, François
French painter and designer. He was the son of Pierre Quesnel (d. ca. 1574), a French painter in the service of James V of Scotland. His brothers, Nicolas Quesnel (d. 1632) and Jacques Quesnel (d. 1629), and his son, Augustin Quesnel (1595-1661), were also painters.
Documentary sources reveal that François was active in France as a decorator, designer of tapestries, coins and medals, as a map-maker and as a painter of altarpieces, but above all as a portrait painter. A number of portrait drawings have been attributed to Quesnel on the basis of a signed Portrait of a Child (private collection). A painted portrait of Mary Anne Waltham (1572; Althorp House, Northamptonshire) signed with a monogram is the basis for the attribution of portraits such as that of Henry III (Musée du Louvre, Paris). His style is typical of late 16th-century French portraiture, in which the naturalism of François Clouet was stylised to such a degree that there is an almost complete absence of modelling and the picture is dominated by flat, linear pattern. Several of Quesnel’s works were engraved by Isaac Briot (1585-1670) and Thomas de Leu (c. 1555-c. 1612).
