École française du début du XIXe siècle. Lot n° 24

Portrait of Louis XVII (1785-1795) wearing the grand cordon and the plaque of the Order of the Holy Spirit. Bust in terracotta, not signed. H. 40 x W. 32 x D. 26 cm. History If the tragic destiny of the son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette still leaves many shadows for historians, it has especially inspired many romantic artists between the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, leaving century, leaving a rich iconography, but paradoxically little precise on the appearance of the prince. Having become the heir to the throne after the death of his elder brother on June 4, 1789, the Dauphin Louis-Charles de France embodies the hope of the dynasty. the hope of the Bourbon dynasty when Louis XVI was deprived of his powers and brought to the scaffold on January 21, 1793. Locked up in the sinister Tower of the Temple, separated from his mother Marie-Antoinette by order of the Committee of Public Safety, the "son Capet" becomes for his supporters the king Louis XVII while while his uncle, the Count of Provence, future Louis XVIII, declared himself regent of the Kingdom. After his death, on June 8, 1795, the child-king is erected as a martyr, victim of the bloody Revolution; feeding until the end of the Restoration "a deeply dolorist imagery", the representation of Louis XVII is also part of a context of claims by false pretenders. Treated in a very realistic way, our bust seems to be close to the portrait executed after 1792 by Alexandre Kucharski (1741-1819), a Polish painter also attached to the Prince of Condé, and one of the last artists to have to have drawn the features of Louis XVII with Vien le jeune, Greuze and Belanger. Literature - François Laurentie. The iconography of Louis XVII. Paris, Extract from the Revue de l'Art ancien et moderne, 1913. - Heurs et malheurs de Louis XVII, arrêt sur l'image. Temporary exhibition, Museum of the French Revolution, Domaine de Vizille, June-October 2018.