# Equestrian Portrait of Louis XIV [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [MIGNARD, Pierre]() - Date: 1651-1700 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 305 x 234 cm ## Commentary The Mignard shows originality in portraiture. This art had almost ceased to exist in its own right, owing to the importance which the Academy attached to history painting. Mignard had the skill to give life to this ailing tradition, and his portraits in this vein, such as the present painting, are vastly superior to similar productions by his rivals, such as Claude Lefebvre, who used a more or less Flemish formula deriving ultimately from van Dyck. In his Equestrian Portrait of Louis XIV Mignard is more ambitious. He shows the King at the siege of Maastricht, dressed as a Roman Emperor on a prancing horse while a Victory flies down to crown him with laurel. Mignard is competing directly with Baroque artists, with <a onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/b/bernini/gianlore/sculptur/1660/louis14.html'\)" href="/html/b/bernini/gianlore/sculptur/1660/louis14.html">Bernini in the pose of the horse,</a> and with <a onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/r/rubens/41portra/04doria.html'\)" href="/html/r/rubens/41portra/04doria.html">Rubens in the whole conception</a> of the portrait. The result proves how unwise it was for a classically trained painter to attempt the vivacity of movement which was the natural idiom of a Baroque artist. ## Related artworks - [Clio]() - [Girl Blowing Soap Bubbles]() - [God the Father]() - [Magnanimity of Alexander the Great]() - [Mystic Marriage of St Catherine]() - [Perseus and Andromeda]() - [Portrait of Edouard Colbert, Marquis de Villacerf]() - [Portrait of Françoise-Marguerite, Countess of Grignan]() - [Portrait of Philippe of France, Duke of Orléans]() - [Self-Portrait]() - [The Heavenly Glory]() - [The Marquise de Seignelay and Two of her Children]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()