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Lot Essay
The lengthy inscription on this relief is composed in two parts. The larger inscription in the middle band identifies the sitter and dates the relief: LVD[OVICO] I. XIII. DEI. G[RATIA]. G[ALLIAE]. ET. N[AVARRAE]. REGE. R[EGNANTE?]. A[NNO]. D[OMINI]. 1.6.3.5 (In the reign of Louis XIII, by the grace of God king of France and Navarre, the year of our Lord 1635). The smaller print on the inner and outer bands forms the text from verses four and five of Psalm 144 (of the Vulgate Bible, actually Psalm 145 in the King James version): 'Generation for generation shall praise Thy works and shall pronounce Thy mighty deeds They shall speak of the greatness of Thy glorious honour and tell of Thy wondrous acts'.
To date, the present relief is known only in this example. Taking the form of a large medal, it was almost certainly commissioned as a unique piece, to commemorate an event or be given as a gift on a particular occasion. Stylistically, it is extremely close to a group of medals attributed to Pierre Regnier, who was, for many years, the effective director of the mint the Monnaie du Moulin (see Jones, op. cit., nos. 95-97, 111-112). Those medals, several of which are in the British Museum, depict the king as he is seen here, facing to dexter and wearing a laurel wreath and armour. The tightly curled hair, the heavy-lidded eyes and the incised irises are common to both, and are totally unlike the portrait of the king by Regnier's contemporary, Jean Warin, executed just two years after the present lot (ibid, no. 197). The finishing of Warin's portrait is altogether looser and more 'waxy'; a total contrast to the extensively chiselled surface of the relief offered here.
Although the precise reason for the commissioning of this relief has yet to be confirmed, it is worth noting that 1635 was the year that Louis XIII signed the Treaty of Compiègne, which marked France's entry into the Thirty Years War on the side of protestant Sweden. Both the king and his minister Richelieu met with the Swedish envoy, Count Oxenstierna, and it would be for precisely this sort of occasion that the relief could have been created, and then given to the envoy to help cement the new alliance.
To date, the present relief is known only in this example. Taking the form of a large medal, it was almost certainly commissioned as a unique piece, to commemorate an event or be given as a gift on a particular occasion. Stylistically, it is extremely close to a group of medals attributed to Pierre Regnier, who was, for many years, the effective director of the mint the Monnaie du Moulin (see Jones, op. cit., nos. 95-97, 111-112). Those medals, several of which are in the British Museum, depict the king as he is seen here, facing to dexter and wearing a laurel wreath and armour. The tightly curled hair, the heavy-lidded eyes and the incised irises are common to both, and are totally unlike the portrait of the king by Regnier's contemporary, Jean Warin, executed just two years after the present lot (ibid, no. 197). The finishing of Warin's portrait is altogether looser and more 'waxy'; a total contrast to the extensively chiselled surface of the relief offered here.
Although the precise reason for the commissioning of this relief has yet to be confirmed, it is worth noting that 1635 was the year that Louis XIII signed the Treaty of Compiègne, which marked France's entry into the Thirty Years War on the side of protestant Sweden. Both the king and his minister Richelieu met with the Swedish envoy, Count Oxenstierna, and it would be for precisely this sort of occasion that the relief could have been created, and then given to the envoy to help cement the new alliance.