Art Institute of Chicago
Portrait of Louis XV
Jacob Christoph Le Blon (German, 1667-1741)LinkedCulture matchlcp-0efcaa2ed528
- Date
- 1739
- Medium
- Mezzotint with etching, in black, brown, blue, and white, with traces of red ink on ivory laid paper
- Culture
- Germany
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Institution
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Object ID
- 34306
From the Art Institute of Chicago record
Jacques Gautier D’Agoty worked as an apprentice in Jacob Christoph Le Blon’s Paris studio for a few weeks in 1738. After Le Blon’s death, he argued that he had improved Le Blon’s color mezzotint process by adding a fourth plate and opportunistically claimed the exclusive right to use the process, by order of Louis XV. Gautier D’Agoty also insisted that—unlike Le Blon—his prints did not rely on hand retouching or highlighting. This portrait of their mutual patron includes both a black plate and etched white highlighting in the hair. The red pigment applied to the lips has faded, and so determining whether Le Blon’s portrait seems closer to a waxed figure than Gautier D'Agoty’s anatomy studies is for the viewer to judge.
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- William McCallin McKee Memorial Collection
Linked open data
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- Object type
- AAT300041273
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