Protection granted to the Fine Arts

Louis XIV is sitting on his throne receiving the Académie Française (according to the Mercure Galant) or an allegory of Eloquence (according to François Charpentier). Other Arts or Academies are depicted in the background (it cannot be said with certainty if the composition depicts Arts or Academies). The date of 1663 only appeared in the inscription in its third condition, by Boileau and Racine, and may refer to the creation of the Petite Académie, which later became the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, or the reformation of the statutes of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (December 1663), or the institution of “board and bonuses” for scientists and people of the arts. Nevertheless, other dates could have been chosen for this subject, and there is no certainty that the original intention was to refer to any of these three events. Other examples could be the creation of the Académie des Sciences and the French Academy in Rome in 1666, or the creation of the Académie d’Architecture in 1671. It is also worth remembering that Louis XIV became protector of the Académie Française after the death of Séguier in 1672, which, according to François Charpentier (commentary published in 1684) is in fact the event evoked in this composition.

Full title : Protection granted to the Fine Arts, 1663