Louis XIV

French 18th Century, after Gian Lorenzo Bernini

National Gallery of Art

A smooth-skinned man is shown from the shoulders up amid a swirl of curls and fabric in this freestanding bronze sculpture. In this photograph of the piece, his shoulders square to us as he looks off to our left, his chin slightly lifted. He has bushy brows, a prominent nose, smooth cheeks, a pointed chin, and his full lips are closed. A thin mustache brushes his upper lip, and a curl coils in a perfect spiral on his somewhat flattened forehead. Curls cascade from head to well beyond his shoulders to flank a wide, patterned collar. We catch glimpses of armor on his shoulders within a whirl of billowing fabric. Below, a rectangular pedestal with a tall, inward-curving cove over stepped molding is on a marble plinth. The sculpture is shown against a fog-gray background in this photograph.