Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Brittany Offers Louis XIV the Model of His Equestrian Statue
Antoine Coysevox French
Not on view
Coysevox’s relief is one of a pair that decorated the pedestal of an equestrian statue of Louis XIV in Rennes, in the French province of Brittany. Here, history and allegory are combined. The personification of Brittany, assisted by the sculptor and architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, presents the design of the statue to the king amid a crowd of spectators in the Hall of Mirrors. Siamese ambassadors, who had traveled through Brittany to reach Versailles, are recognizable by their conical hats. A representation of the marriage of Louis XII and Anne, Duchess of Brittany, unifying France and Brittany in 1499, hangs on one of the arched mirrors in the background.
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