246. Groupe équestre en bronze représentant Louis XIV D'après Martin Van Den Bogaert, dit Desjardins (1637-1694), France, deuxième moitié du XVIIIe siècle A bronze equestrian group depicting Louis XIV After Martin Van Den Bogaert, known as Desjardins (1637-1694), French, second half 18th century Resting on a blackened wood veneered base with copper banding, trophies inlaid and gilt-bronze mounts of later date, 41cm wide, 46cm high (16in wide, 18in high) (65cm total high) Provenance Acquired from Galerie Jacques Perrin, Paris, on January 31, 1978, then by descent from the current owner. Related Literature M. Martin, Les Monuments Équestres de Louis XIV - Une grande entreprise de propagande monarchique, Paris, 1986, pp.138-156/ F. Souchal, French Sculptors of the 17th and 18th centuries-The reign of Louis XIV, vol. 1, no. 47, pp. 258-9. In 1685, Jules-Hardouin Mansart (1646-1708), first architect of the Bâtiments du Roi, launched a vast project of equestrian monuments to the glory of Louis XIV, intended to assert his authority throughout the kingdom. Five projects were completed: Paris, Lyon, Montpellier, Dijon and Rennes. At the instigation of Lyon's governor, Maréchal de Villeroy, the consuls decided to erect an equestrian monument to the sovereign on the newly laid-out Place Louis-le-Grand (now Place Bellecourt). The artist chosen for the project was one of the most renowned of his time: the Dutchman Martin Van den Bogaert, known as Desjardins. On May 20, 1688, the contract was signed between the sculptor and the Maréchal de Villeroy, for a lump sum of 90000 livres. Desjardins undertook to create a large-scale statue of the king on horseback (19 feet high by 16 feet long) within three years. The monumental bronze was cast by Roger Schabol at the Keller foundry in Paris. It was not erected until after Desjardins' death in 1713, and was finally destroyed on August 28, 1792. Today, only a fragment of the foot is preserved in the Musée historique de la ville de Lyon. An engraving by Benoît and Jean Audran depicts the monument as it was in 1723 (Lyon, Archives municipales). From this date onwards, reductions and variants in bronze and other materials were commissioned and produced for official figures such as Nicolas Chupin, King's Councillor, or Baron Crozat Thiers, and then more widely distributed as the subject was so highly prized. Several late reductions of the equestrian monument on Place Louis-le-Grand are conserved in French, international public collections and in private hand, as the bronze presented here.