User:Leejordan9/Reception of the Grand Condé at Versailles

Reception of the Grand Condé at Versailles
Reception of the Grand Condé at Versailles
French: Réception du Grand Condé à Versailles, Réception du Grand Condé par Louis XIV
Artist	Jean-Léon Gérôme
Year	1878
Catalogue	RF 2004 15
Medium	Oil painting
Movement	Academic art
Subject	Louis, Grand Condé being received by Louis XIV at the Palace of Versailles
Dimensions	96.5 cm × 139.7 cm (38.0 in × 55.0 in)
Location	Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Reception of the Grand Condé at Versailles or Réception du Grand Condé à Versailles in French is a painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme in 1878. It represents the reception of Louis II de Bourbon-Condé by Louis XIV, at the Palace of Versailles, at the foot of the Escalier des Ambassadeurs [fr], in 1674. The painting was acquired in 2004 by the Musée d'Orsay.

Analysis

Following the mixed success of another of his paintings, Siècle d'Auguste : naissance de N. S. Jésus Christ (Exposition Universelle of 1855), Gérôme chose to focus on “small” history. In this painting he highlighted the comedy of power, through the belated allegiance of the prince to his king. The taste for reconstruction and the painter's precision are found in the representation of the rich court costumes, and in the reproduction of the monumental Escalier des Ambassadeurs de Versailles, destroyed more than a century earlier.^[1]