Imperial Art

Portrait of Louis XIV in Coronation Robes

Our full-length painting of Louis XIV in royal costume is a replica around 1702 of the painting commissioned from the painter Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743) by the monarch in 1701.It then became his official portrait hung in the salon of Apollo used as the throne room at the Palace of Versailles, and preserved today in the Louvre Museum. It is in every way very close stylistically and materially to the replica executed for Philip V in 1701, intended for Madrid but which remains at Versailles. It now hangs in the Salon d'Apollon, where the Louvre version was until it was moved during the Revolution. This portrait of Louis XIV by Hyacinthe Rigaud is an iconic work, symbol of royalty. If the engraved or painted copies, especially reduced to the bust or half-body, are numerous, the copies of quality in full, are extremely rare.
This rare full-length replica from the very beginning of the eighteenth century is not only of exceptional quality, but also of admirable origin, since it belonged to the Noailles family. Our painting is attested in the collections of Adrien Maurice de Noailles (1678-1766) son of Anne-Jules de Noailles (1650-1708), both peers and marshals of France, close relations of the King Louis XIV, Madame de Maintenon and the painter Rigaud, which makes it from an exceptional origin.
Our research, at the c2rmf imaging center, at the family archives and at the national archives concerning both the origin and the materiality of the work show us that we are in the presence of a replica and not a copy of the king's buildings. We can therefore attribute the painting to Rigaud's workshop as the version kept at the Palace of Versailles, both from "La Fabrique Rigaud". As for the replica of Versailles, the face was not painted from nature unlike the painting of the Louvre where the face of the king, much longer and linear, is painted on a small canvas inlaid in the large one Like the paintings of the Louvre and Versailles, our version consists of two strips of canvas assembled by a seam that the painter tried to shift to the right so as not to alter the king's face . The canvas and the implementation of our painting make our copy the "twin copy" of the version kept at the Palace of Versailles. It is remarkable for its good state of conservation and its very advanced illusionist character, by the virtuosity of the design of the fabrics, the velvety of the hand so specific to Rigaud and the freshness of the colors with very few repaints.. The physiognomy of the king is very close to the  painting kept at Versailles, especially at the  the face and the wig levels and the work is particularly remarkable in the coat of the coronation with the very tactile aspect of the fur. Moreover, the rendering of the textiles is in a beautiful work, "as if we were in the pulp", without any dryness, including in the hanging of the bottom, through which can often be seen in the copies.