Charles Le Brun and the Image of Louis XIV 

The Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, the Royal Oak Foundation, and NYSID welcome Dr. Wolf Burchard on the topics addressed in his new book, The Sovereign Artist: Charles Le Brun and the Image of Louis XIV.
King Louis XIV’s favorite artist, Charles Le Brun, has often been described as a “dictator of the arts” in France-a statement which Dr. Burchard’s book reassesses. Le Brun was a gifted and versatile artist, as well as an excellent painter and designer of tapestries, sculpture, architecture, and furniture. As Louis XIV’s principal painter and director of the Gobelins manufactory, he sought to translate the Sun King’s claim to absolute power into a visual form. This lecture explores Le Brun’s different media and his relationship to the great monarch.
Dr. Wolf Burchard is an art and architectural historian, and a specialist on 17th and 18th century royal patronage. He is the British National Trust’s Furniture Research Curator and previously served as Curatorial Assistant at the Royal Collection Trust.