Art Institute of Chicago

Portrait of Louis XV

Jacob Christoph Le Blon (German, 1667-1741)

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

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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