Portrait of Charles Le Brun
Gérard Edelinck (Anvers, 1640-Paris, 1707), d’après Nicolas de Largillierre (Paris, 1646-1756)
Portrait de Charles Le Brun, Premier peintre du Roi
1684 – Tirage moderne
Burin
Collection particulière
Portrait de Le Brun
© Collection particulière
This second portrait represents Charles Le Brun, who was born in 1619 in Paris and died in 1690 at the Manufactory of the Gobelins. He was one of the most powerful and brilliant artists of the “Grand Siècle” (the 17th century).
In 1664, he was granted the official title of “First Painter to the King” and thus became in charge of all royal artistic activity. Satisfying a king such as Louis XIV, whose taste for pomp and ceremony was beyond imagining, was a constant challenge for Le Brun for 25 years!
Two of the ten pieces of the Moses Tapestry were woven on the basis of paintings by Le Brun, in order to complete the Poussin cycle. The presence of these additional tapestries is due to the great esteem Le Brun felt for the work of Poussin. But it also came about because the First Painter to the King was director of the Gobelins tapestry works at the time when the weaving of this vast tapestry began.