Oil on canvas

72 x 59 cm.

In lacquered and gilt wood frame 87 x 74 cm.

The painting examined here, depicting King Philip V of Spain (Perpignan 1659 - Paris 1743), is to be placed in the circle of the painter Hyacinthe Rigaud (Perpignan 1659 - Paris 1743), one of the most significant portrait painters of his time and a great interpreter of the French school.

This is a work of excellent painterly quality: note the rendering of the facial features and the sharpness of the contours emphasized by the light. The face is characterized by chiaroscuro passages that verisimilarly reproduce light and its effects, rendered with great skill.

Philip V wears a black satin costume with a sword at his side, wears the stiff white Spanish collar, and at the same time wears the blue sash of the Order of the Holy Spirit and the collar of the Habsburg Order of the Golden Fleece: this coming together of the two principal orders of France and Spain heralded the possibility of a union between the two crowns.

In Spanish costume, however, this effigy is fully in line with the French tradition of ceremonial portraiture, also testifying to the renewal that Rigaud had brought about, particularly through the relationship between the character and the pageantry of decoration.

The work is inspired, reworked in a reduced format to make it appropriate for a private commission, by the large painting that Rigaud made for the sovereign around 1700, now preserved in the Louvre (https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010057783), reproduced by the same atelier in numerous other versions.

The accounting records of Rigaud's workshop show, from 1701 to 1708, about 21 replicas of this subject, made by the master or often with the help of collaborators such as Charles Viennot (1674-1706) and Adrien Leprieur (1671-1732), now in numerous proven and public collections; among them the painting in Madrid (Palacio Real) and the one kept in the Uffizi in Florence (imm1: https://catalogo.beniculturali.it/detail/HistoricOrArtisticProperty/0900646199 ) both versions that in format and size resemble the canvas we propose.

Imm 1: Portrait of Philip V of Spain

French ambit

Uffizi Gallery

The work is presented in a good state of preservation, complemented by a lacquered and gilded wooden frame.

For more information you are welcome to contact us.

You can also see the painting in our gallery in Riva del Garda, we will be glad to welcome you to show you our collection of works.

In case of purchasing the work from non-Italian clients it will be necessary to obtain an export permit which takes about 10 to 20 days, our gallery will take care of the whole phase until it is obtained. All costs of this operation are included.

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