Giovanni CAPASSINI (Florence circa 1510 - Tournon circa 1579) Portrait of Cardinal François de Tournon (1489 - 1562) Walnut panel, enlarged by approx. 2cm on each side 34 x 26.5 cm Identified on verso as Odet de Coligny, Cardinal de Châstillon and attributed to François Clouet Restored by the Rostin workshop in 1984. (Small accident in the lower right corner, and in the green background on the right). 17th-century carved and gilded oak frame This unpublished panel is an important example of portraiture in mid-16th-century France. Painted in Lyon around 1555, it features a layout and technique close to those of painters from the Medici's Florence, or Sebastiano del Piombo, and offers an interesting alternative to the art of Corneille de Lyon, who dominated the portrait market in the capital of Gaul in the middle of the century. Our painting is a reworking of a work held in a private collection, reproduced in the catalog of the exhibition "Lyon Renaissance. Arts et humanisme", Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, 2015 - 2016 (p.230), and also Camille Larraz, "Giovanni Capassini et Etienne de Martellange, portraitistes de la Vallée du Rhône", catalog 166, slightly larger. There are several small variations. The habit is different, with brocade decoration here, plain in the other version; he has no cape, which is more hollowed out in the Avignon version; finally, the border on the galero's ears is black here, red in the other. Born in Florence, where he was probably a pupil of Andrea del Sarto, Capassini moved to France in 1553 to work for Cardinal François de Tournon, whom he had met in Rome. The latter had been Archbishop of Lyon since 1551. Cardinal de Tournon was also an eminent member of King Francis I's Council, before leaving the court after Francis I's funeral. He did not return to the king's council until 1560, under the regency of Catherine de Medicis at the accession of Charles IX. This patron and model for our panel is shown in profile in the right-hand panel of the Resurrection Triptych, in the Château de Tournon, which is our artist's masterpiece. Mentioned in Lyon from 1555 to 1568, he was the master of Étienne de Martellange, a well-known architect, but also a painter, between 1565 and 1568. In addition to his religious compositions, we know of a small number of Capassini portraits, including the one in Avignon's Calvet Museum, signed and dated 1577.