Portraits of the Three French Kings, Louis XIV, XV and XVI, from an Occitan Collection
The dispersal of a gallery of royal portraits, notably Hyacinthe Rigaud’s famous image of Louis XIV, sheds light on the mechanisms used to disseminate the image of monarchs during the Ancien Régime
Estimate: €20,000/30,000
From the vantage point of their imposing gilded frames, kings who have left their mark on French history gaze down upon you… Until today, these towering portraits belonged to a collection of furniture and paintings assembled by a French couple with a passion for 17th and 18th century art. To house their treasures, purchased from leading Parisian antique dealers in the 1960s, these connoisseurs acquired a château in the Occitanie region: an ideal setting, as the estate itself dates back to the Age of Enlightenment. Here, in a specially designed gallery, a dozen portraits of kings and princes, French and foreign, have long sat enthroned. Among these majestic canvases, some are far from unknown: they are replicas of renowned, legendary museum-quality works, created at the time of the originals. Such is the case for the figures of three Bourbon sovereigns, and in particular the most illustrious of them all: the Sun King. He will open this monarchical parade with the famous Portrait of Louis XIV in a Coronation Costume (Portrait de Louis XIV en costume de sacre) by Hyacinthe Rigaud. It is a reworking, by the master’s studio, of the great official portrait painted in 1701: a model that was to set the rules for the representation of an absolute monarch. The story behind the original painting, now in the Louvre (no. INV 7492), is not without its theatricality: Louis XIV commissioned Rigaud to paint it as a gift for his grandson, the Duc d’Anjou, future King of Spain under the name of Philip V, before his departure for Madrid. But once the painting was completed, Louis XIV changed his mind…
This composition (€5,000/6,000) can also be compared to the depictions of the adolescent sovereign by the artist’s father Jean-Baptiste Van Loo, which are in the collections of the Château de Versailles.
Serial Replicas
The work caused a sensation, as reported in the Mercure de France: “No portrait has ever been better painted, nor more realistic; the whole Court saw it and everyone admired it. Highly satisfied with his image, the Sun King kept the work at Versailles…“ and commissioned a replica for Philip V. From then on, Rigaud’s workshop began to produce numerous copies of this masterpiece, intended as gifts for royal dignitaries and ambassadors alike, and constituting a substantial corpus into which our version fits. In the sale, the figure of Louis XIV will be associated with that of his successor, in the Portrait de Louis XV en pied (190 x 106 cm/74.80 x 41.73 in), an 18th century French school attributed to a follower of Louis Michel Van Loo. This composition (€5,000/6,000) can also be compared with the depictions of the adolescent sovereign by the artist’s father Jean-Baptiste Van Loo, which are in the collections Château de Versailles. As for the grandson of the “Bien Aimé” (Beloved), he is represented here by a Portrait de Louis XVI en costume de sacre (€8,000/10,000). The canvas (181 x 154 cm/71.25 x 60.6 in) was painted by a follower of the painter Antoine-François Callet. The original, completed in 1780 (perhaps the version now in the Musée Bargoin in Clermont-Ferrand), was also to serve as a model for a number of copies, destined to make the French monarchy shine throughout Europe… one last time.
Saturday 22 March 2025 – 14:00 (CET) – Live
2460, avenue Albert-Einstein – Domaine Teissier – 34000 Montpellier
Dame Marteau – Air Auction
