Antique Portrait Of Louis XIV After Simon Thomassin Late 17th Century

FRENCH SCHOOL, LATE XVIIᵉ - EARLY XVIIIᵉ CENTURY
After Simon Thomassin

Portrait de Louis XIV en buste à l'antique

Black and gray ink drawing on paper, circular in shape, depicting King Louis XIV in profile facing left, coiffed in the antique style and girded with a laurel wreath. The sovereign is depicted in draped bust, in a medallion inspired by the official iconography disseminated at the end of the XVIIᵉ century.

The composition faithfully reproduces an engraving by Simon Thomassin, the King's engraver, whose medallion portraits of Louis XIV participated in the dissemination of the monarchical image in a classical language inspired by Antiquity.

The treatment of the drawing, playing on fine hatching and modeling imitating the effects of burin, indicates a work of interpretation from print, probably executed in a context of study or copying, a common practice at the turn of the XVIIᵉ and XVIIIᵉ centuries.

Mounted on blue strong paper.
Detouré and glued to sheet ( three small holes )
Diameter 17.2 cm