Equestrian portrait of Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, with his son Victor Amadeus II

The immediate precedents of this painting are the equestrian portraits painted by Charles Dauphin for the Venaria Reale, and it takes up the rhetorical tradition of court painting, which considered equestrian portraits to be the highest representation of regality. Attention is drawn to the brand on the Duke’s horse and the old-style attire of the Duke recalls the model provided by Pierre Mignard in the famous portrait of Louis XIV of France, now at Versailles.