Louis XIV

c. 1780, before 1793

A smooth-skinned man is shown from the shoulders up amid a swirl of curls and fabric in this freestanding bronze sculpture. In this photograph of the piece, his shoulders square to us as he looks off to our left, his chin slightly lifted. He has bushy brows, a prominent nose, smooth cheeks, a pointed chin, and his full lips are closed. A thin mustache brushes his upper lip, and a curl coils in a perfect spiral on his somewhat flattened forehead. Curls cascade from head to well beyond his shoulders to flank a wide, patterned collar. We catch glimpses of armor on his shoulders within a whirl of billowing fabric. Below, a rectangular pedestal with a tall, inward-curving cove over stepped molding is on a marble plinth. The sculpture is shown against a fog-gray background in this photograph.

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On View

West Building Main Floor, West Sculpture Hall

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    bronze

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 84.2 x 100 x 43.2 cm (33 1/8 x 39 3/8 x 17 in.)

  • Accession

    1943.4.87

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly E. Williamson, Paris.[1] Sir Stewart Montagu Samuel [1856-1926], London. (Duveen Brothers Inc., London, New York, and Paris); sold by 1905 to George J. Gould [1864-1923], New York, and Lakewood, New Jersey; sold c. 1927 back to (Duveen Brothers Inc., London, New York, and Paris); sold 1941 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1943 to NGA.
[1] Duveen Brothers claimed that the bust had been given by Louis XIV of France (who commissioned the original marble version) to his brother Philippe, duc d'Orléans, and that it was kept in Philippe's Château de Saint-Cloud until the residence burned in 1870. However, no such bust is cited as being at Saint-Cloud or in the royal residences by any existing guidebook or inventory. See Anne-Lise Desmas' entry in Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture, exh. cat., The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2008-2009, Los Angeles, 2008: 267-269.
[2] Ulrich Middeldorf, Complete Catalogue of the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Sculptures XIV-XIX Century, London, 1976: 81.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1920

  • French Decorative Art and Sculpture of the XVIII Century, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1920.

1941

  • Exhibition of Sculpture, Duveen Galleries, New York, 1941, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2008

  • Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2008-2009, no. 6.8, repro.

Bibliography

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 254, repro. 225, as by Lorenzo Bernini.

1944

  • Duveen Brothers, Inc. Duveen Sculpture in Public Collections of America: A Catalog Raisonné with illustrations of Italian Renaissance Sculptures by the Great Masters which have passed through the House of Duveen. New York, 1944: figs. 230-231, as by Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini.

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 78, repro. p. 63.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 202, repro., as by Lorenzo Bernini.

1949

  • Seymour, Charles. Masterpieces of Sculpture from the National Gallery of Art. Washington and New York, 1949: 182, note 49, repro. 152-153, as by Lorenzo Bernini.

1951

  • Hartt, Frederick. 'Review: Charles Seymour Jr., Masterpieces of Sculpture from the National Gallery of Art." College Art Journal 10 (Winter 1951): 205.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 84, as by Bernini.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 439, repro., as by Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 146, as by Bernini.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 130, repro., as by Bernini.

1976

  • Middeldorf, Ulrich. Sculptures from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools XIV-XIX Century. London, 1976: 81.

1994

  • Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 29, repro.

1997

  • Villeneuve, René. Baroque to Neo-Classical: Sculpture in Quebec. Ottawa, 1997: 51-52. repro. fig. 35.

2002

  • Kathrens, Michael C. American Splendor: The Residential Architecture of Horace Trumbauer. New York, 2002: repro. 152.

2008

  • Penny, Nicholas. "The Evolution of the Plinth, Pedestal, and Socle." In Collecting Sculpture in Early Modern Europe. Nicholas Penny and Eike D. Schmidt, eds. Studies in the History of Art 70, Symposium Papers 47 (2008): 478-479.

2015

  • Miner, Carolyn H. “Not by Bernini: A Re-Examination of the National Gallery’s Bronze Bust of Louis XIV.” In Carolyn H. Miner, ed. The Eternal Baroque. Studies in Honour of Jennifer Montagu. Milan, 2015: 103-117, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q63809442

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