(b Edinburgh, 1542–5; d Paris, 1619). French painter and designer. He was the son of Pierre Quesnel (d c. 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, including some in the Villeflix and Gaignières albums (Paris, Bib. N.), have been attributed to Quesnel on the basis of a signed Portrait of a Child (Angoulême, Biais priv. col., see Dimier). A painted portrait of Mary Anne Waltham (1572; Althorp House, Northants) signed with a monogram is the basis for the attribution of portraits such as that of Henry III (Paris, Louvre). His style is typical of late 16th-century French portraiture, in which the naturalism of François Clouet was stylized 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.

• Quesnel, François
  • Marolles, Michel de